


One Wing Between Them

by MusicalsandMordred



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Best Friends, Eventual Romance, M/M, Meet-Cute, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24634816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalsandMordred/pseuds/MusicalsandMordred
Summary: “Grantaire!” Jehan is too excited to see the other student to try and curb his enthusiasm. “What are you doing here?!?”“I ask myself that a lot, but, considering I am actually in this class, I thought I’d better show up today.”In which Jehan sucks at making friends (his words) and Grantaire likes to pretend he's ok with being alone, but they both give this unexpected friendship a shot.Sort-of-kind-of Barricade Day 2020 and Uni AU because I'm basic.
Relationships: Courfeyrac/Jean Prouvaire, Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Grantaire & Jean Prouvaire
Comments: 24
Kudos: 53





	1. Dropping In

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Fiendishfools](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fiendishfools/gifts).



> A few things: this is inspired by conversations my friend Fiendishfools and I have about how much we are like Grantaire and Jehan respectively. As these things are wont to do, both these boys started kind of there and are now people of their own in my head which is crazy!
> 
> This is also the first fic I've ever posted where I didn't have it all planned out and/or written before I posted it so...guess we'll see where this goes!

Jehan reaches for the faded purple spine of the book – he can just brush it with his finger-tips. Almost got it…He stretches up onto the toes of his leather boots, feels the edges of their tongues press against his shins and dig in, and still he reaches.

He doesn’t get the book.

He, in fact, drops the book. Drops it with a thunk that seems to shake the floorboards of the very quiet corner of the campus library. It creates quite the echo for such a small, old book.

Jehan manages to catch his breath. Unfortunately, as he tries to right himself back squarely onto the step ladder, he flails and falls forward instead. There comes a strangled squwak sound beneath him, and then all he feels are pointy elbows and knobby knees and lots of buttons poking at him. The bookshelves above are eclipsed by a large amount of dark fabric – whoever Jehan landed on is trying to right themselves but is really only tangling the two of them up further. There’s a metaphor in that statement somewhere, he thinks. Then he finally gets his feet beneath him, frees his head from the fabric surrounding it, and stands.

The person who provided Jehan’s soft landing is on their side and rolls over with lots of groans and choice swears. They sit up, dragging a corduroy knapsack with them and oh Gods. They are dressed like the coolest person Jehan has ever seen, a person way too cool to be loitering in this section of the library. The knapsack is covered in buttons, absolutely covered, and they’re more colourful than Jehan would expect given the all-around blackness of their clothes (ok the collared shirt underneath the jacket is navy blue but really.) The black jacket is very big on them, but their black jeans are very tight and very ripped. They look like they’re male-presenting, but Jehan would hate to assume anything like that just from looks.

It is as the person looks up at Jehan that he remembers his manners and offers his hand to help them up. They give him a lopsided grin and take his hand with an ‘oof’ to stand.

“Very sorry about that. I was so sure I could reach that book!”

They wave the apology away with a flick of their wrist. Their fingers are dotted all over with paint smears. “Happens to all of us at one point or another.” Yes, but Jehan is fairly certain most people who drop a book don’t also drop themselves right after.

“I’m Jehan,” he says with a chirpy smile. “My pronouns are he/him!”

“I’m Grantaire,” the cool stranger with the buttons says. “Same on the pronoun front.”

He barely batted an eyelash about the pronouns. What a cool dude! Jehan wants to ask him all sorts of questions about his opinions and maybe launch into a rant about gender-normative stereotypes; he recalls having just landed squarely on top of Grantaire and opts to shuffle his feet instead.

Grantaire slugs his knapsack over his shoulder and plunks the beanie in his hand back over his dark curls. They look like they could use a wash and a good strengthening hair mask, but even Jehan knows enough about other humans to curb his impulse to share his hair-care tips with this almost-stranger. Grantaire flashes a peace sign and turns to go.

“Oh wait!” he bends to snatch up the little lavender book. “Here’s your book.”

“Thank you!” Jehan’s embarrassment is fading by the second with this conversation. He takes the proffered book and gets another roguish smile for his trouble. Then, just as Grantaire is moving again (and because he doesn’t want their conversation to end) he blurts out, “You can borrow it after I’m done!”

And there comes the embarrassment again. He really doesn’t know why he says these things - why on earth would Grantaire be interested in Jehan’s library picks? - but Grantaire is in the same section (although he really doesn’t look like he belongs there) so maybe… Grantaire raises a brow and Jehan, for lack of any chill whatsoever apparently, holds the book out flat towards him with pin-straight arms.

“Classic Flora and Fauna of the British Tidelands,” the other man reads. He shrugs at Jehan. “Why not?” he says. “Let me know when you return it, dude.”

He leaves with another smile and Jehan hugs the book to his chest as if he can contain the warmth that whole interaction conjured within his chest cavity through will and book-bindings alone.

It isn’t until he gets back to his flat that he realizes he has absolutely no way of getting in touch with Grantaire.

* * *

It turns out not to be a problem, because at Jehan’s next Intro to Ancient Humour class, Grantaire slides into the empty seat beside him.

“Grantaire!” Jehan is too excited to see the other student to try and curb his enthusiasm. “What are you doing here?!?”

“I ask myself that a lot, but, considering I am actually in this class, I thought I’d better show up today.”

“You’re in this class?” Jehan didn’t think he’d ever seen Grantaire before he ran into (dropped onto) him in the library and this was a smaller-sized class…

“Yeah, ‘technically’,” one could feel the scorn dripping out of Grantaire’s words, “but I’m not the most ‘regular’ of attendees.”

“Oh,” Jehan says. “Not like you’ve been missing much.”

Grantaire just grunts. He looks tired – big purple circles under his eyes and his hair is an even greater mess than in the library – like his edges have been gradually fading away since Jehan saw him last. Jehan thinks for a moment. He doesn’t want to annoy Grantaire further (would someone who thought he was annoying sit beside him? He doesn’t know, people tend to give him a wide berth. Maybe they're allergic to the flowers he adds to his braid on the regular?) but he also doesn’t want to sit elbow to elbow silently all class (and no he doesn't actually believe that about the flowers.)

As surreptitiously as he can manage, Jehan rummages around in his messenger bag with his left hand while keeping his eyes trained on the front. Their decrepit professor has just arrived and is tremulously preparing his lecture notes. He is a very feeble, very stern old man, but Jehan is sure the professor could still beat him up if he wished. Grantaire doesn’t look over, though he must hear the sounds of foraging. He only looks down when Jehan plunks a medium-sized white drink carton on his desk.

“What’s this?”

“It’s for you!”

Grantaire eyes him carefully. “No offense, but I usually like my coffee with a whole lot more Bailey’s and whole lot less,” he glances at the label, “coconut milk?”

Jehan rolls his eyes right back. “Just try it ok? I have another carton in my bag.” Grantaire’s eyes narrow further and he just stares at Jehan. “You look like you could use the pick-me-up more than I could,” Jehan presses. Grantaire looks skyward (well, _roof_ ward, actually) like he cannot _believe_ this is how his day is going, but he takes a reluctant swig.

Jehan goes back to listening to the prof drone on about Sophocles, enjoying the feeling of looking studious because he remembered his multi-coloured note-taking pens today. As he is so intent on Not Checking For Grantaire’s Reaction, he actually looses himself in the lecture. Though the professor is droning on in decidedly humourless tones, Jehan spices his notes up as best he can.

_Archilochus and Hipponax wrote dick-joke poems_ , he writes, tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration. _Aristotle sang phallic songs to worship Dionysus = MOOD._ He doesn’t actually remember someone is sitting beside him today until a note slides onto his desk.

**WTF is this stuff and where has it been all my life?!?**

Jehan bites back a smile and scrawls back: **_Told you! Rebel Kitchen is the bomb._**

Grantaire writes fast with a black-tipped pen. **Where do you find this shit? I need me a box of cartons now!**

He giggles to himself, finishing highlighting this section of notes before responding. It’s not surprising Grantaire’s never seen it before; funnily enough, Grantaire doesn’t look like he frequents the Organic sections of grocery stores.

**_My grandma orders them online and shares ‘em with a bunch of her friends. I can hook you up if you say the magic words._ **

All Grantaire writes back is ‘the magic words’ in all caps. It’s a very lame joke, but it makes Jehan very happy.

**_Your wish is my, and therefore my grandmother's, command._ **

They spend the rest of the class trying to take notes (at least Jehan is trying, all Grantaire has are few lined pieces of paper and a chewed-on pencil) but end up mostly just passing notes back and forth about the dismal-ness that is their professor.

**He opens his mouth and all I hear is gibberish like the grown-ups from Charlie Brown** , Grantaire writes…which forces Jehan to admit that he doesn’t really like and can’t really watch Charlie Brown (they’re so mean to Charlie and it makes him more upset than he would like to admit. At least Jehan is noticeably weird, Charlie Brown does nothing and still gets picked on!) This in turn prompts a wickedly long rant from Grantaire about the merits of Charlie Brown comics and their artist. Apparently he’s something of a hero to Grantaire. He uses up the rest of his supposed note-taking paper to give a detailed history on Charles M. Schulz that is much more interesting than the class they’re both supposed to be paying attention to. Though, admittedly, it doesn’t take much to be more interesting than their professor! It is clear Grantaire really is passionate about this stuff, and it makes Jehan exceedingly happy that he is comfortable enough to share it with him.

Class begins to wind down and soon enough they are gathering their things. After all the ease they’ve cultivated through their notes, Grantaire seems a little awkward speaking aloud again. Jehan knows the feel.

“Hey uh, thanks for…this.” Grantaire gestures vaguely to their desks that had gradually moved closer to maximize their note-passing. “And uh, sorry for talking your ear off about Charles Schulz for like the last hour,” he passes a hand over the hair at the back of neck sheepishly, “he’s a bit of an obsession for me.”

“You mean you ‘wrote’ my ear off about him, and anyway, I liked hearing about it.” Then a crooked grin crosses Jehan’s face. “Might as well learn about something if I’m not learning about Ancient Humour!” He wants to elbow Grantaire like they are ‘buddies’ but he’s not sure they’re quite there yet. Maybe they won’t ever be, despite how badly Jehan wants. Maybe today was a fluke.

Grantaire laughs, and it sounds genuine to Jehan’s carefully-listening ears. His fears are slightly soothed by the sound.

“Anyway, I was glad to see you in this class. You turned what was shaping up to be a bitchass day into a better one.” That warms Jehan from his head to his toes, but Grantaire freezes. His eyes are wide and he actually starts shaking his head minimally from side to side, like he wants to erase his words floating through the air.

He stumbles: “I uh, I…”

“I was glad you were here too!” Jehan cuts off, “I was worried I’d never see you again after the library!” Grantaire gives him an odd look, like he’s questioning what he just heard, and Jehan rushes to explain himself. “I wanted to exchange contact info so I can let you know when I’m done with my book!” Grantaire’s face doesn’t change, not a muscle moving since Jehan had last spoke, which Jehan thinks is much worse than sneering or something. He realizes how much more awkward _that_ sounded. “I mean,” he flounders, “only if you want to I completely understand if you were joking, actually, that would make more sense…”

“Jehan.” There’s a dry smirk across Grantaire’s face. Jehan stops. He feels a little breathless and a lot flushed. This is why he sucks at making friends, he always freaks them out…

“Yeah?”

“Give me your phone.” Jehan obeys and Grantaire types what can only be assumed as his number in. He hands the phone back while playing with his chewed-on pencil in his other hand. “Text me when you’re done your flora book, man. I actually do want to check it out.” Jehan feels all the breath go out of him in a rush. “And,” Grantaire shrugs, “you could even text me before that if you want. We could meet up for lunch one day if you’d like maybe.” His face is carefully and neutrally casual, but he’s still tapping his desk with his pencil – in fact, the tapping has gotten faster. Jehan feels a smile break out and he nods what is maybe several times too many. He doesn’t care anymore about how he looks to Grantaire, and he’s starting to think Grantaire doesn’t care either.

He takes a deep breath to replenish his cells, then: “Actually, I’m heading for lunch now, if you would like to come. And if you don’t have class or a club or something…?”

“Do I really strike you as the ‘join a club’ type, Jehan?”

Jehan giggles. “No.”

“ _Good_.” Grantaire heaves a fake sigh of relief. He shrugs his shoulder so his knapsack bumps Jehan’s messenger bag on its way up Grantaire’s arm. “Let’s go nab some lunch then.”


	2. I've Seen Enough Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dude,” Grantaire whispers (the acts must be changing over, so there is at least one more before the end.) “You alright?” Jehan groans. He wants to say: no, I’m a moronic imbecile or: no, but at least this table is treating my forehead kindly or maybe even: why have I chosen to torment myself in this way, why? 
> 
> Before he decides on an answer, a guitar is strummed, accompanied by a familiar throat clear. Jehan’s head whips up from the table so fast he gives himself whiplash.

It’s not until Jehan finds himself on the cobblestones of the walkway that he realizes he should have been paying more attention to his surroundings. He shakes his head a little to reorient himself, but only a little, because he’s worried about dislodging the low-braided bun he managed to wrangle his hair into (that bun is the reason he’s running so late; he’s not about to fricken waste all that time and effort now is he?)

“Jehan! Jesus!” It is with palpable relief Jehan registers that the person he ran into is exactly the person he was hoping to find.

“Thanks, R,” he says as Grantaire pulls him up and brushes the dust off his coat. “We have to stop meeting like this!”

“Jehan, what the hell man? I texted you half an hour ago about where you wanted to meet for lunch, you never replied…Jehan!” Jehan skids to a stop. He was hoping Grantaire would follow if he just up and took off running again, but he supposes that was too unrealistic a hope; as if Grantaire would ever be caught dead running anywhere!

“No time to explain!” Jehan gasps out, “We’re gonna be late!” He jogs back the few meters to be standing in front of his friend again. Grantaire is looking less and less thrilled by the second. The Eyebrow of Extreme Skepticism and Disappointment (as Jehan refers to it) is raised as high as he has seen it in the last few weeks. But Jehan will not be deterred.

“Come _on_!” He grabs Grantaire by the plaid sleeve and takes off at the same collision-inducing pace.

Jehan can’t remember being this happy, maybe ever. It’s not as if he was particularly unhappy before he met Grantaire, he was just very solitary. He had an isolated childhood with only his grandparents for company at the cottage. He never (surprise, surprise) fit in with the other kids at school, because of his grandparents and other things too. Some of his solitude, of course, was by choice but some of it…Jehan has had friends before, but not many he wanted to stay in touch with when moving to university. He was never good at that and now too much time has passed for reaching out to be anything but more pain than it would be worth.

Before Grantaire, whole days would go by without Jehan saying anything to anyone except his grandma on the phone. It didn’t bother him so much as escape his notice? Looking back on it now, it had been like there was a thin veil drawn between Jehan and everyone else he crossed paths with, shimmering and appropriately gauzy for a veil sure, but very present all the same. It had felt impenetrable until he knocked it down by knocking Grantaire down.

He and Grantaire have been hanging out for just over two weeks now, and Jehan feels his joy at being with people has been ignited. Or, maybe just the _one_ person.

That first day at lunch cemented the fact that Grantaire is vastly more cool than Jehan is: R is an art student in his second year and he is also from around Edmonton (Jehan found out they’d frequented some of the same spoken word poetry venues back home, though Grantaire stressed he had been there under extreme duress.) They’d talked so much – words overlapping and food getting everywhere in their haste to express – Jehan was almost late for his next class and had barely eaten his salad. They had lunch the next day and the day after that, then they’d played video games that whole weekend. The sun had stung their eyes when Grantaire left on Sunday evening – they’d eaten nothing but chips and dip and hadn’t truly moved from the couch in two days, so that wasn’t surprising.

No, Jehan can’t remember being this happy, or the last time he had a friend he liked as much as he likes Grantaire. He hadn’t known how acutely lonely he was until he abruptly was no longer. Grantaire doesn’t express it much, but Jehan is sure he’d been lonely too. It is why they make such a great pair.

Jehan tunes Grantaire’s complaints out as he tugs them along to their destination; it is thankfully not far, because they are both already out of breath. Maybe he should look into yoga or Pilates or something, Jehan thinks, but the thought fades as they arrive at the Arts and Sciences building. Jehan lets go of Grantaire’s arm – “Finally!” his friend growls with a huff – in order to hold the door open for him. Grantaire stalks through, straightening his shirt out and still grumbling.

The beat of Jehan’s heart increases with each landing they reach on the stairs. They can hear the murmurings of people as they make their way down, which Jehan is relieved to note means they are not yet late. He is positive Grantaire is glaring holes through his collar, but this will be _so_ worth it. Jehan couldn’t very well not have lunch with Grantaire today, but he also couldn’t miss this month’s session! He might have just…forgotten to text Grantaire about it in the midst of his hair struggles.

Grantaire’s finally stopped asking questions and muttering vague threats behind Jehan as they find themselves at the bottom of the stairs, which is a relief – Jehan’s heartbeat is in his throat and his mouth is so dry no response would come out anyway.

The last landing of the stairs opens into a long hall with low lighting. It is clearly a multi-purpose space – locked cabinets line the far wall, and there are desks of all kinds as well as easels stacked precariously at the back. Right now, it is set up to function as a quasi cabaret theatre, complete with lounge seating, a slightly raised platform to the right of them that boasts all of two mics, and some picnic pitchers full of drinks.

Jehan tries to casually check the state of his hair in the mirror he’s just tall enough to see in across the room, ignoring Grantaire scoffing beside him. “What is this place?” he asks, in a tone Jehan can’t decipher. Wonder? Horror? Little bit of both? Unfortunately, Jehan never gets the chance to respond. In his stretching to see more of his hair in the mirror, he stumbles off the last two steps.

“Shit!” Jehan is preparing to meet the floor and just lie there, accepting his Very Embarrassing Fate, but Grantaire grabs hold of the back of his shirt before he can fall. It chokes him a tad, but in the end he just wobbles a little before Grantaire sets his feet down properly on the floor. Grantaire’s eyebrows are arching up into his curly hairline.

“You ok, dude? You seem a little…jumpier than usual.” Jehan chuckles awkwardly and waves him off, though he supposes Grantaire will figure it out soon enough (he’s incredibly observant when he wants to be, damn him.) Grantaire shrugs. They weave through the mostly-full tables and chairs to find a place to sit, a place Jehan hopes has a good view of the left microphone. He’s trying to take some calming breaths (he hasn’t really gotten his breath back from all the running yet) but it’s doing anything but working. It’s not Jehan’s fault though! He can’t help that he’s felt as if someone replaced the blood in his veins with caffeine since he woke up this morning, and he certainly can’t help that every moment since has only increased the feeling.

This is just how Jehan always feels when he’s about to see Courfeyrac perform.

“So.” Grantaire has his arms crossed and he’s leaning lazily back in his chair (he likes to look like he doesn’t care.) Jehan stops jiggling his legs and tears his eyes away from the stage – both are harder to manage than he would like to admit.

“So what?”

Grantaire rolls his eyes. “Are you ever going to tell me what we’re here to see?” he asks.

“Hmmm?” Jehan hears the words, he does, but all his senses are straining to alert him the minute the show starts. He doesn’t want to miss a second he could have to admire Courfeyrac.

“Jehan!” He snaps his gaze back to Grantaire a little guiltily.

“Sorry, R. It’s a, uh…” One of the musicians comes out onstage, and the feedback from them tuning their guitar makes Jehan twitch. “It’s a…showcase of sorts.” Grantaire fails to look impressed and Jehan is beginning to regret this. “I thought it’d be fun?” he finishes weakly. Grantaire stares at him, stares _hard_ , for a second, but something in Jehan’s manner must make him give a little.

He shakes his head. “Only for you,” he mumbles, and if it were any other day, Jehan would pounce and never let him hear the end of that. As it is though…

A young man comes onstage Jehan’s seen but never met; at the sight of him, Jehan sits at attention in his chair. It is not Courfeyrac, but Jehan is still electrified by the sight - he recognizes the redhead as representing the same club as Courfeyrac.

“Hello everyone…” The groups nearest the pseudo-stage quiet and begin to settle down at the announcement, but not everyone towards the back seems to hear. Jehan’s heart goes out to the guy – his hair is going every which way and is fizzing in the three floodlights behind him and he has skipped a button halfway through doing up his shirt. Frazzled would be a generous descriptor. He clearly doesn’t have the patience or the time to wait for the audience to listen to him so he _makes_ them listen by letting out an ear piercing whistle.

“Jesus,” Grantaire mutters, rubbing his ears. It did the job though: everyone promptly shuts up and sits down or leans against a wall. The redhead isn’t fazed in the slightest.

“Thank you,” he says, with a wry smile for the now-quiet crowd. He is cute, Jehan muses, in a hassled, over-achieving A-type kind of way. “And thank you for coming to this month’s Arts and Sciences club showcase!” Jehan can feel Grantaire’s eyes on him, boring into him, at those words. He will never hear the end of this, he is positive. His legs start jiggling under the table again.

“If this is your first time here, welcome,” the redhead at the mic is saying now. “A few of my friends and I started doing this at the beginning of last year to get the news out about our club, and now look what we’ve become!” A few people at tables closer than Jehan and Grantaire give loud ‘whoops’ in response; they must be regulars, more so than Jehan is even (Jehan came for the inclusion and variety, he stayed for Courfeyrac sightings.) He can’t imagine what Grantaire is thinking at this point. Actually, he can, but Jehan decides he doesn’t want to imagine. That train of thought is just increasing the need to jiggle his legs.

“But enough about us, we’ve got a big itinerary to cover, so without further ado I give you – Brujon!” Jehan must have spent the rest of the redhead’s intro lost in his thoughts. The redhead bounces offstage and Jehan sees him grab a clipboard and one of those headset mics. He must be in charge; Jehan pities him even more now (although he must know Courfeyrac, so surely that life couldn’t be so bad…?)

A familiar-looking taller man steps onstage, and only then does Jehan realize the redhead meant this Brujon. He groans. Audibly. Brujon is in Jehan’s Poetry Analysis class. Jehan _really_ wishes he wasn’t. He has a tendency to just reiterate what other students say, offering up their insight as his own and sounding like he’s flipped through a thesaurus in search of fancy-sounding words. Jehan hates people like that.

Brujon drops the paper he’d been pulling out of his pocket and Grantaire just barely bites back a snicker.

“This should be good.”

Jehan watches Brujon read some…interesting slam poetry about his basketball club of all things (how on Earth is that related to Arts and Sciences?) Grantaire spends the whole time Brujon is speaking kicking Jehan anytime he says something truly ridiculous. Must be his way of coping. Jehan, for his part, just tries to tune Brujon out, and he mostly succeeds. He watches the next three acts up after as if from a much farther distance than he is actually sitting, _his_ way of coping perhaps. His excitement and anxiety have launched Jehan to a space far away from the performers, somewhere their words and acts (some quite good and some god awful, judging from whether Grantaire reacts or not) can’t reach him. It’s nice to sit there in outer space, in his own world of words and thoughts and caffeinated blood, but he distantly feels bad for not listening.

To be fair, he is usually better at paying attention to what is being showcased: he went to the floriculture and pomology club because of what he saw at this showcase! Today, however, his usual nerves and the excitement of having Grantaire here have turned Jehan into a terrible audience member. He thinks his legs are still jiggling, but he can’t be sure. Gah, when is Courfeyrac going to step out?!?

After the seventh or so act – an interpretive dance of sorts from the multiculturalism club that Grantaire doesn’t visibly seem to mind – Jehan gives up. His head thunks onto the table in defeat as he laments the loss of his sanity for nothing. The showcase should be wrapping up relatively soon, they usually only last about half Jehan’s lunch break on Thursdays, and Courfeyrac hasn’t come out yet. Maybe he’s not going to, Jehan thinks, and punctuates this thought with another head-thunk against the table. Maybe today will be the first day ever he doesn’t perform on behalf of his club.

“Dude,” Grantaire whispers (the acts must be changing over, so there is at least one more before the end.) “You alright?” Jehan groans. He wants to say _no, I’m a moronic imbecile_ or _no, but at least this table is treating my forehead kindly_ or maybe even _why have I chosen to torment myself in this way, why?_ Before he decides on an answer, a guitar is strummed, accompanied by a familiar throat clear. Jehan’s head whips up from the table so fast he gives himself whiplash.

Courfeyrac stands there at the left microphone, strumming his acoustic guitar. He gives the audience a sheepish smile as he makes sure the strings are in tune, like he’s saying _be right with you, everyone!_ Jehan can’t help the tiny sigh that escapes; his jiggling legs have finally stopped their dance. He doesn’t dare look at Grantaire, who is concerningly quiet about this new act.

The floodlights bleach the top of Courfeyrac’s head a luminescent silver, the shade of which stretches down his hair before it gives way to the normal inky blackness of his curls. Grantaire’s hair is also black, but Courfeyrac’s hair looks softer somehow, like Grantaire got the darkest form of the night sky and Courfeyrac got the one tinged with enough navy to soften the harshness. Maybe that’s just Jehan romanticizing again, and why is he even comparing the hair colours of his totally unattainable crush and his (best, but he hasn’t gotten the courage to say it to R yet) friend in the first place?

He quashes the voice rising in his head as he sneaks glances from Courfeyrac to Grantaire and back again (it’s hard to look away from Courfeyrac for long stretches of time.)

They both have curly hair too, but Grantaire’s is shorter, the curls are tighter. Jehan thinks they might feel like a Brillo Pad if he touched them. Courfeyrac, on the other hand, looks like he at least knows what conditioner is. His hair is much longer, though not as long as Jehan’s, and it falls in waves to rest just above his shoulders. He _must_ use conditioner, Jehan thinks. Maybe something that smells like coconut or almonds… Grantaire’s hair doesn’t smell like anything, he doesn’t think…and oh my GOD why is he doing this comparison thing again?!????

 _Maybe because Grantaire is the first person who’s cared about you the same way you care about him in a long time?_ the nasty brain voice sneers. _Maybe because you’ve never had to differentiate between your crushes and your friends before?_

_Maybe because feelings are confusing?_

He shakes his head in a visible effort to clear his thoughts – Courfeyrac must’ve introduced his song because he is playing the intro now. He has a thoughtful, concentrated furrow to his forehead (that Jehan is Definitely Not going to write a poem about later) as he picks his way across the strings.

Then he opens his mouth and begins to sing.

“ _I’ve lived long enough_

_to grow weary_

_of just how very cruel_

_this world can be._

_Am I supposed to ‘sit tight,’_

_leave well enough alone?_

_You say the people who fight_

_are not my own_?”

Jehan can’t sing a note to save his life, but he’s always loved the way music’s dips and falls can transport him places and tell stories just as well as words can.

“ _I’ve seen enough fire_

_witnessed enough rage._

_People create barbed wire_

_so their hearts may disengage_.”

The tune of this song is simple, but Jehan feels it in his chest somehow, like the melody is reaching in to grab something from him (he isn’t sure what is being reached for just yet.) Courfeyrac’s voice is clear; he seems to soar or descend in pitch effortlessly.

“ _I can’t be quiet, oh please,_

_for goodness sake!_

_Don’t you see there’s more_

_than our lives at stake_?”

Jehan likes the way Courfeyrac crafts his words. Jehan’s own head is full of so many words and images and wishes, half of which he doesn’t know the meaning of. His poem pages end up littered with three, sometimes four, syllable words and lots of question marks. Courfeyrac’s rhyme scheme isn’t some sophisticated form or structure, but his words fill it out. They leave no room for questions. Jehan likes that, and he likes that the words of this pretty boy can also leave him gutless on top of his overall…prettiness. Pretty is the right word for Courfeyrac. It wouldn’t be right for some of Jehan’s other objects of affection – handsome or striking or regal worked in those situations – but Courfeyrac is simply pretty, damnably so. He reminds Jehan of a jewelry store. Full of carefully-crafted things you cannot touch unless you are meant to.

Jehan is so often drawn into something or someone just because of the way they shine. It is nice to like someone with depth too (or as much depth as you can get from only knowing them through performance.)

He listens as Courfeyrac continues singing the end of the chorus and notices that his voice is wavering. Is it emotion, or uncertainty? His guitar strumming starts to slow down a little, before he revamps and repeats the tagline of the chorus like a coda. He must be drawing to the end, though this is a one-verse song if that is the case.

Jehan is leaning forward as Courfeyrac sings “I’ve watched the flames grow higher/May this song inspire some change,” and adds a little trill on the last note while striking his final chord.

“Thank you,” he says into the mic, receiving the hearty applause with bright eyes. “That song is uh…not quite finished yet.” He looks embarrassed by the admission. He repeats: “So, uh, thanks again!” Then he shakes his hand out and plays the intro to a song he’s played at this showcase before. The notes ring out louder than Jehan would expect from an acoustic guitar. He feels them on the back of his skull.

Courfeyrac gives a ‘whoop’ and then he’s off, playing wildly for the rest of his time onstage, all his earlier hesitation wiped away by the cheers of the audience as they recognize songs he’s played for them before.

* * *

“So.”

Grantaire has waited two beats after they sat down at the dinner across the street to begin speaking. The nonchalant ‘so’ is his first word after asking where Jehan wanted to go for lunch and Jehan telling him about this place. If Jehan hadn’t been spending as much time as he could in the last few weeks in Grantaire’s presence, learning to read his facial expressions, he would be very worried he’d upset Grantaire.

Unfortunately, Jehan can read many of Grantaire’s miniscule facial expressions, and he can tell by the barely-perceptible smirk tugging at his friend’s mouth that this is going to be… _fun_. There is nothing for it but to go once more unto the breach, though.

So, Jehan blithely glances around the retro dinner at all the cheesy paraphernalia before letting his gaze land back on Grantaire. The man’s face hasn’t moved an inch (Jehan should get him to teach him how to master that talent.)

“So, what?” he asks, keenly aware of how much they’re mirroring their previous discussion.

“So. You like boys.” It isn’t a question. Jehan feels his face heat up – at the fact that Grantaire saw all his feelings for Courfeyrac in a heartbeat, he isn’t afraid of Grantaire’s reaction to the ‘boy’ bit – and knows Grantaire has clocked it by the eyebrow he raises in response (this particular eyebrow raise is deemed The Eyebrow of Sardonic Amusement.)

“Yeah?” Jehan replies. “I mean I guess. It’s difficult for me to tell, sometimes, when I’m into people…that way…” he trails off, hoping Grantaire will give him a reprieve. No such luck. Grantaire just leans back in his chair and props his head up on his hands. Jehan can see the poem he wrote on Grantaire’s wrist during their last Ancient Humor class, though only the words ‘dry as my bones will be’ flash by before the fabric shifts to cover them.

Jehan steals himself then. This is his friend. His _only_ friend. And he chose to bring him to the showcase for one main reason. He looks Grantaire in the eye and tries his best to mirror his eyebrow raise (he’s sure it’s not nearly as sardonic though.)

“Boys?” he says, and is proud of his voice for only quavering a small amount, “I think you mean _that_ boy.” He tosses his head, even though his hair is tied up, affecting a superior, snobby air. “To answer your question, I don’t have a specific label on who I like, but I know I like _that_ boy. Very much!” Jehan crosses his arms – he’s trying to be defiant. He feels he succeeds, though he knows his ears and his cheeks are on fire.

Grantaire finally cracks a smile, throwing the remains of the paper cup he’s been fiddling with since he finished his drink from the showcase at Jehan. “You have good taste,” he says. Jehan smiles back.

They’ve been munching in comfortable silence for several minutes when Grantaire looks up at Jehan over the crust of his panini (Grantaire has an intense rating scale for judging food places based on their sandwich offerings, and this has merited a coveted 8.5/10, which pleases Jehan. It is his favourite retro dinner, after all.)

“I do too.”

Jehan is a little confused. “Sorry?”

Grantaire sets his panini down and begins using his knife to dissect the crumbs on his plate into even smaller portions. He doesn’t look ill-at-ease, per se, he just won’t meet Jehan’s eyes.

“I like guys too. Well, and girls. But yeah.”

Jehan nods. Once. Twice. “Ok,” he says. Grantaire is still dissecting crumbs, and Jehan wishes he would stop, so he lets the first thing that comes to mind fly out his mouth. “How hot do you think Courfeyrac is then, on your weird sandwich scale?”

Grantaire looks up at him sharply. He has that look on his face, that look from the first few times Jehan met him, the look that says _I can’t believe you’re a real person_. Jehan is used to getting many variations of that look, mostly negative, but he really likes it on Grantaire. He likes that he is surprising enough as a person to break through Grantaire’s mask on his feelings.

Jehan watches as Grantaire decides to let his emotions fully shine through on his face. These are the moments with him Jehan always likes the best – he can literally see the relief flood through Grantaire’s black eyes and feel the tension go out of him as he drops his crumb-dissecting knife. If he could draw people, he would always be trying to draw Grantaire right after he lets the uncaring façade relax. Jehan half wants to ask him why he was so worried about judgement from his friend who is also into guys (kinda, sorta, maybe? On certain days of the week?) but the other half really wants the answer to his sandwich question to landslide into a ridiculous discussion, so he lets the opportunity pass.

Grantaire answers: “ _So_ hot,” and that’s all it takes to set them giggling. “Honestly, really and truly smoking,” he spits out through laughter. “I watched him come out onstage and I watched your reaction and I was literally like thank Christ Jehan has good taste. I had a first year drama course with him and I could never focus on the ‘drama’ bit when he was onstage.”

Jehan allows himself a private moment full of the image of Courfeyrac under more direct spotlights, like the ones he saw in the black box on his freshman tour of the school. In Jehan’s mind, Courfeyrac is reciting Jehan’s favourite sonnet, although in reality it was probably more like playing drama games.

“Was he nice?”

“Oh the nicest. Nice, loud, huggable, that’s Courfeyrac.”

“Ok, but the scaaaaaaaaale,” Jehan pleads. He bangs his palms against the table as accompaniment for his words. “Give me a number where you think he rests on the sandwich scale, and _then_ finish torturing me with tales of your history with the love of my life!”

Grantaire is still giggling ferociously, but he sobers enough to give the ranking the proper dedication it deserves.

“Hmmm.” He looks to his left. He looks to his right. He looks up and narrows his eyes in contemplation. Jehan is biting his lip to keep from bursting into laughter and interrupting what is clearly a serious, thought-provoking request. Grantaire closes his eyes for several minutes, screwing his mouth up the entire time, and then looks back at Jehan.

“9.3,” he declares.

Jehan is flabbergasted. “A 9.3?!?!? I’ve never seen you rate anything so high.”

“You’ve known me less than a month.”

“Point. But you do eat a ton of sandwiches in my presence.”

“Point again but,” - there goes that damnable eyebrow once more. Jehan is convinced Grantaire knows how good he is at raising the brow in question, _and_ knows how jealous Jehan is of it, and, _and_ makes a concerted effort to do it all the more in Jehan’s presence -

“Am I wrong?” Grantaire asks, biting into his sandwich while holding intense eye contact (with his eyebrow still raised) for a comically long time.

“No, of course not.”

Grantaire takes another big bite of his panini. “Love of your life,” he muses, chewing noisily. “Have you met him?”

“He was in my first year Lit course!” Jehan replies defensively. The defence slips away into dreamy remembrance: “He always had such original contributions to class discussions about Frankenstein…”

Jehan is pulled out of his recollections by Grantaire’s continual noisy chewing.

“Ok, let me ask you this,” – Jehan really wishes he would finish chewing and then talk, Jehan is clearly in the blast zone – “Have you ever _spoken_ to him?”

“WHAT? No, who do you think I am?”

“Uh.” Grantaire looks stumped by Jehan’s intense reaction. “Someone who talks to the people they want to talk to?”

“Nooooooooooooooo.” Jehan feels himself shaking his head very quickly. “Nuh uh, that’s capable grown up stuff. I can barely keep to my composting schedule! I am NOT the person who readily talks to other people.”

“You talked to me…”

“I fell onTOP of you, extraneous circumstances are the only reason - What do you think would happen if I dared to speak to someone that pretty?!?!?”

“He might remember your name?” Grantaire offers weakly. “And want to talk to you again? And I may have low self esteem, but still, I deeply resent your implications.”

Jehan knows Grantaire isn’t that offended, and he also knows that implying he only talked to Grantaire because he isn’t as attractive as Courfeyrac is mean, for lack of a better word, but Jehan is still feeling sick at the thought of speaking to his crush and therefore cannot muster up enough appropriate guilt.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean anything close to that I – I just can’t talk to him, that’s all.”

Grantaire blinks. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Oh, like you can judge me on that!” Jehan scoffs. “You have exactly the same number of friends I do, last time I checked, so how many people are you going out of your way to talk to?"

“But the difference is, I don’t _want_ to talk to anyone. I don’t have a single, 9.3-on-the-sandwich-scale crush waltzing around with his guitar.”

“Grantaaaaaaaaaaaire - Wait!” Jehan narrows his eyes at him. “How do you know he’s single?”

The bastard takes a serene bite of his panini, grinning with his mouth full, and makes Jehan fume and wait while he chews. Slowly. Jehan’s legs are jiggling again.

“I mean I’m just assuming,” Grantaire finally shrugs. He’s studying his plate again and pursing his lips peculiarly. “Nobody who plays at a monthly club showcase is in a relationship,” he says.

His shoulders are shaking and Jehan finally realizes he’s trying to hold in his laughter, which is all it takes to turn Jehan into a pile of incoherent giggles.

His sides are hurting by the time he manages to choke out, “And you’d know this from your many relationships?” which does nothing to ease their mirth.

“His relationship status doesn’t matter, none of that matters, R,” Jehan says when they can both breathe again. The waiter behind the counter is shaking their head at the dumb university students in their booth. “Whether I can talk to him or not doesn’t matter ‘cause I have no clue where I’d run into him outside of the showcases. I had a class with him last year, nothing this semester.”

Grantaire just rolls his eyes. “We are not done the conversation, I just have to finish my panini before we’re late.”

They’ve just finished paying at the counter – Jehan is tempted to apologize to their waiter for their rambunctious nature, but he is just anxious enough from everything today to not try – when a voice calls out from somewhere behind them.

“Grantaire?”

Both R and Jehan freeze, which will be comical at a later date but is just an indication of their terrible crisis responses at the moment. And it is well and truly a crisis, because the voice cannot belong to anyone else but Courfeyrac. Jehan glances at Grantaire because there’s not much else he can do.

The disbelief on Grantaire’s face is slowly being replaced by something that looks dangerously close to rapture; Jehan’s stomach has caught up to speed with the situation and gives a violent, rebellious twist. A disarmed, joyous Grantaire is completely at odds with his frayed plaid and ears peppered with piercings - the industrial has always been Jehan’s favourite, he would get one himself if he thought he could handle the pain and commitment. Grantaire waggles his eyebrows at Jehan, then spins around to give Courfeyrac a little two-fingered salute.

“Courf, hey, good to see you man.” He’s doing an awfully good job at keeping his voice light and unconcerned, but Jehan can detect the mischief lurking under the casual words. He turns himself around much more slowly to see Courfeyrac waving at the two of them (well, Grantaire really) from the booth two away from where they’d been sitting.

Jehan realizes Courfeyrac has been waving them _over_ only after Grantaire complies. Jehan’s stomach does not like this addition to events.

“I thought I saw you when I was onstage, but I wasn’t sure. Hard to tell with those shitty lights.”

“Yeah, they were kinda aimed more into our eyes than at you. Who rigged them?”

“I don’t know, Feuilly’s always struggling with people to help set up. Whoever’s available from the Amis usually helps him do it.”

“Tell Feuilly to dm me, I know someone who might be able to help if they’re not too hungover. Even then I’ll bet they’d still do a better job than that shitshow.”

Courfeyrac’s voice warms. “Thanks, he’ll appreciate that. Hey, good to see you too, Jehan!”

Jehan’s head whips up in a way that makes him regret all the strain he’s put on his neck today. He’s been doing a thorough analysis of the checkered tablecloth so he doesn’t make prolonged and awkward eye contact, and doing a good job of it. He could write up a nice report about checkered patterns by now, he’s sure. He was truly hoping to get through this exchange without speaking, it’s not like Grantaire was going to win conversationalist of the year no matter how bubbly Courfeyrac was so the conversation should have been short, but this is something else altogether. He’s been addressed. By _name_.

He has no choice but to look up. Courfeyrac is smiling and his eyes are bright. He’s put on a sweater since leaving the showcase, the pink shade of which is making his face look as highlighted as a magazine ad. He’s looking at Jehan, and Jehan is suddenly and acutely aware that he’s never seen Courfeyrac’s eyes this close before (it’s not even close by anyone’s normal standards.) Jehan then realizes he should respond, one needs to speak when one’s been addressed, he repeats, by _name_.

“Yeah, nice to see – hey,” is what he manages, which is terrible but could be worse. He pictures Grantaire wincing beside him and prays to all the gods he knows to keep his face a neutral colour right now.

Courfeyrac doesn’t seem perturbed. “You guys want to join me? I have some time to kill before my club meets up?”

It is this statement that finally skids Jehan’s brain to a conclusive halt. Thankfully, Grantaire is there to be Jehan’s knight in plaid-and-ripped-denim armor.

“Uh, thanks but we both have classes on the other side of campus, so.” This isn’t entirely a lie; Jehan’s class just happens to be much closer than R’s.

“No sweat,” Courfeyrac nods.

“Yeah so we should probably head out…”

Jehan’s mouth moves of it’s own accord before his thought has even processed: “I liked your song today!” It sounds like a shout to him, but it’s actually come out so jumbled that no one seems to have properly heard what he said (Courfeyrac’s confused face is endearingly earnest, and Jehan has never wished for death more.)

“Your song,” he repeats helplessly. “Today, I, uh. Really liked it.”

Grantaire is looking at him like he’s grown another head (very Hydra of him, if he had) but Jehan isn’t actually regretting being honest and communicative right now. He _had_ liked the song. People who haven’t been crushing on you for a year and a bit can also like your songs, that isn’t suspicious.

Courfeyrac tucks his hands under his thighs and rocks on them slightly. Offstage, he is always moving, a lot like Grantaire, actually. But with Grantaire it’s a sure sign he is dying on the inside. Courfeyrac just seems to not even notice when he’s in motion (damn you, comparison brain!) It makes his grounded-ness on stage all the more obvious.

“Thanks,” he says, and there is that embarrassed tone again. “It’s not done yet, but, yeah,” he shrugs, “I wanted to play it for an audience, see if they actually responded to it, if it was worth continuing my writing.”

“Well, I liked it!” Jehan wishes he could find something constructive to say, could pin the words on top of all the feelings Courfeyrac’s song had evoked within him and pull something meaningful out of his brain, but, like they always do, the words fail him in the heat of the moment.

“Yeah, it’s good,” Grantaire adds, seeming not to want to watch Jehan fail at conversation endlessly. His usual smooth, noncommittal tone is giving way though, as he hastily adds, “Not that I know jackshit about song writing.”

They lapse into silence. Ok, they had a nice run of it, Jehan thinks, but now they’re slowly tanking, they should leave before he word vomits something else at Courfeyrac.

“Well, uhhhh, see you at the next showcase, Courfeyrac,” he stutters.

“Yeah, ‘course!” Courfeyrac smiles, and it is so much more dangerous for Jehan’s blood pressure when they’re not separated by a few feet of cabaret tables and some amps. “You’re always a good indicator of when my set is going well, it’s very helpful. I should contract you for my pub gigs.”

 _What_. “C-c-cool, well I…um.”

Courfeyrac doesn’t seem to notice that Jehan’s brain has lost connection with his mouth. He gasps, it makes both Grantaire and Jehan jump, and then starts rubbing his hands together like he’s a comic book villain.

“I know you guys have class this afternoon so it’s a no go right now, but my club’s next meeting is this Saturday. Wanna come? We’re always looking for new perspectives.”

_What the fuck is happening?_

Courfeyrac seems to sense their hesitation. Since he knows Grantaire, this makes sense. “R, I know it doesn’t seem like your scene, but you’re so good at pointing out weak areas in presentations and Jehan, I mean, with your words…”

_WhAT?!?_

Jehan’s first impulse is to give an apologetic but firm no. Of course, it’s not like he and Grantaire will be doing anything except maybe homework (that’s optimistic thinking in Grantaire’s case, unless it’s for his actual art classes) but it’s also not like Jehan can even consider stepping foot into a room with that many strangers unless Grantaire is there and Grantaire would never…

He hears himself say, against his brain’s better judgement, “We’d love to!!!” Yes, his voice squeaks and yes, three distinct exclamation marks can be heard on the end.

Courfeyrac has the nerve to look even more excited; he bursts into a wide grin, and Jehan’s head is swarmed with the shining planes of his face and his slightly crooked eye teeth and his pink fuzzy sweater. He thinks he might faint.

“Great! Here’s the address, see you guys then!” Courfeyrac waves cheerily as Grantaire and Jehan stagger their sorry corpses out of the dinner (or at least that’s how it feels to Jehan.)

They might have taken some shots in that conversation, met some awkward potholes perhaps, but all in all, not bad.

“I can’t believe that just happened.”

Courfeyrac was genuinely nice and kind to them (especially if he pretended not to see Jehan’s palpable awkwardness; if he didn’t notice it, even better.) Maybe he is kind like that to everyone, even mostly-strangers, but if that is the case, Jehan wasn’t repulsive enough to warrant a less-than-usual response. That’s a win in his book!

“I cannot believe that just happened. Jehan, look at me, this is a face of a man who can _not_ _believe_ …” Grantaire dissolves into incredulous giggles. “We were _just_ talking about you talking to him, and then he was there! What are the odds?”

Jehan just had a conversation with Courfeyrac! History has been made! He feels a little like the sidewalk has turned to clouds beneath his feet, or maybe his legs are just tired from all the nervous jiggling. Whatever, he talked to Courfeyac, and Courfeyrac smiled back! He feels like whistling, and Jehan can’t whistle anymore than he can sing. He’s definitely going to be replaying this day in his head until the end of time. And –

“Oh fuck, I just realized that means we gotta go to this club thing on Saturday.”

Jehan is going to see him again, within the next two days!

Grantaire’s horror is increasing. “It’s a social justice club, Jehan. They meet more than once a week, and one of those times is on a _Saturday_.” He tries to step in front of Jehan and block his path to get his attention, but Jehan has started skipping and so easily swerves this obstacle.

“I don’t want to go to this thing, Jehan, can you get me out of it? Explain to Courf and his do-gooder friends that I’m violently ill or something? ‘Cause I will be if you make me go! I’m not gonna go to this club, Jehan. I told you I’m not a club person!”

Jehan is barely listening. Nothing can anchor him to this menial Earth right now!

“Jehan! Are you listening? I’m not going to this stupid club with you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned into a massive chapter because I wrote myself into a corner with Courfeyrac and his performance before I realized he'd need to actually SING A SONG and that meant I had to WRITE A SONG. So I kept writing to put off writing a song, and I just kept writing, and writing, and writing.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed though! Comments are always appreciated.


	3. Here Comes the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Jehan thinks, watching his friend watch the short blonde with the blue eyes. Oh, Grantaire. He grins as he realizes this evens the playing field a little with regards to future conversations about Courfeyrac, but the grin slips away as he remembers he was hoping to rely on Grantaire to speak to the bulk of people today. Clearly, that isn’t an option now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight Warnings: mentions of third-party suicide in response to bullying and homophobic/gender-specific comments from a teacher.

“You owe me,” Grantaire is grumbling as they climb the stairs. “Big time.”

He’s been grumbling all day, so this isn’t very concerning. Jehan feels bad, he does, to be putting R through this “hour or two of incurable optimism and hope.” But not bad enough to avoid resorting to his sad, Romantic sighs or using the argument that Grantaire wanted him to speak to Courfeyrac in the first place to get him to finally cave. Attending this club meeting is even extended, past-unexpected-first-encounter speaking. They should be celebrating!

Jehan’s stomach and brain don’t feel much like celebrating. He is excited, somewhere underneath all his doubts and fears and regrets, but it is buried far beneath the churning mess.

The club, Les Amis de l’ABC, apparently meets in the back room of this café that just barely counts as being ‘on campus.’ Campus-adjacent would be more accurate. He and Grantaire are arriving a few minutes early, and good thing too, because it took them a while to figure out the Amis weren’t meeting in the main sitting area. The old lady running the till finally took pity on them and pointed them to the stairs when they mentioned the club. The café is rather small and it appears to still have all it’s original wood mouldings. Jehan loves it; he runs his palms along the imperfections in the railing as he climbs the rickety stairs, and it helps ease his panic a little. That is surely a good sign.

Grantaire looks at Jehan when they reach the top and are faced with the door. They can hear lots of voices emanating from behind.

“You sure about this, Mr. Not The Person Who Readily Talks to Other People?”

“Stop trying to weasel your way out of this!” Jehan sticks his tongue at him, with a playfulness that is only slightly forced. He can tell Grantaire is also nervous, even though he knows at least two of the Amis from other classes, not counting Courfeyrac. His fists are bunched up in his pockets in an effort to not fiddle with anything. Jehan keeps a collection of small rocks in all his pockets for just this reason; he’s going to slip some into Grantaire’s coat pocket the next chance he gets.

He swallows his own nerves and takes a deep breath. “I’m sure, R. Let’s do this.”

Grantaire opens the door and ushers Jehan in first with a cheeky, “Age before Beauty,” that reminds Jehan of his grandpa. They step into a bright room, crowded with people, food, and posters in various stages of construction.

Courfeyrac isn’t hard to spot, and not just because Jehan’s eyes are used to surreptitiously seeking his tall frame out when he enters a room: Courf is standing in the center of the chaos, scrolling through his phone in search of some “kickass arts and crafts tunes” and wearing a sunshine yellow shirt. The shirt brings out the tone of his skin. His bouncy curls have been wrangled into two lopsided pigtails, but not very well because they are coming undone by the second. Jehan’s stomach and heart play tug-of-war at the sight.

Thankfully, Courfeyrac is the first to see them.

“You came!” he chirps, leaping and twirling over the many poster-crafting supplies on the ground with impressive grace. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t!” He has to take a massive leap over a banner in progress and ends up toppling into Jehan. Jehan fumbles with Courfeyrac’s shoulders to help get him standing again, and knows his face is the colour of a tomato.

His voice is pretty much under control when Courfeyrac is back to standing properly, so he decides to rat Grantaire out in true cowardly fashion: “Well, it took a lot of convincing on my part to get R here, but thankfully he isn’t immune to my charms.”

“Can’t imagine anyone would be.” Courfeyrac winks, then punches Grantaire in the arm while Jehan is trying to remind his brain that he needs to _breathe, goddammit_. “I’m glad he convinced you man, I’ve wanted you to come since you took Prof. Whitman to task in first year.”

Grantaire waves him off, fighting a pleased smile. “Yeah, yeah, you finally got me into your weird headquarters, but it _is_ all thanks to Jehan.”

Courfeyrac claps his hands and all the voices peter out. “Attention, everyone! This is Jehan, and this is Grantaire. Say hi to Jehan and Grantaire.”

There is a loud chorus of ‘Hi Jehan and Grantaire,’ and ‘welcome’ and ‘nice to have you’ and probably other platitudes. It is overwhelming for Jehan, but not in a bad way. The diversity of people is exciting and no one seems too fixated on the new arrivals, which is encouraging. But all that is nothing compared to the flood of embarrassment that comes when Courfeyrac adds, “Jehan is the reason Grantaire is here at all, so everyone say thank you, Jehan!”

There comes a much louder swell of ‘THANK YOU, JEHAN.’ This might be how he dies, Jehan thinks, as he shuffles out of his coat with a flaming face, but it might not be such a terrible demise. He’s witnessing the glory that is Courfeyrac in pigtails, and though none of the classic poets ever said anything about angels having pigtails, Jehan would like to take that conversation up with them because now he is firmly convinced they do.

“We’re focusing on making posters for our next clothing drive until everyone is here and the meeting proper can begin,” Courfeyrac explains. “Which should be any minute now…” he checks his phone right as the minute is changing over from 1:59 pm to 2:00 on the dot. A side door opens just to the right of their little huddle that Jehan hadn’t even noticed in all the chaos.

“Right on time!” Courfeyrac exclaims. He beams at the two people who have just stepped into the room (Jehan doesn’t think he’s ever seen anyone smile as often, or in as many differing ways, as Courfeyrac.)

The two newcomers are like a study in complete opposites. The tall one is Black, with close-cropped dark hair and grey eyes. Jehan thinks they’re dressed very much like a stylish professor – he loves their glasses and would like to buy himself a pair like that, although maybe in a lighter colour (if he needed glasses, that is.) The other person is quite short, shorter than even Jehan himself and two of the girls he recognizes from some of his lectures, but they carry them self like their height is of no consequence. Their hair hangs in a long, golden plait over their shoulder, and Jehan is immediately envious of how thick it is. He is also envious of their combat boots, which look like they could handle stomping on a person’s head with ease. Jehan is forever struggling to find combat boots that come in a size small enough to fit him.

“Enjolras, Combeferre, the guys I said might come are here!” Jehan is trying to figure out which is which as they come over, but the question is answered quickly.

“I’m Combeferre,” the tall one says warmly, shaking Jehan’s hand with a firm grip he is sure both his grandparents would approve of. “And this is Enjolras.” The blonde one nods to both Jehan and Grantaire with a small smile. There comes an alarming choking sound next to Jehan. Grantaire’s eyes are practically bugging out of his head, so he must’ve been the source.

“R, you alright?” Jehan whispers. He doesn’t think Grantaire is allergic to anything, given what Jehan has seen him consume with no problems but –

“What?” Grantaire looks startled, then blinks several times in Jehan’s direction like he’s having a hard time focusing on him. “Oh, yeah. Um. I’m fine. Completely fine.” He’s still turned towards Jehan, but his wide eyes keep flicking over to where Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras are having a quick side conversation.

Ah, Jehan thinks, watching his friend watch the short blonde with the blue eyes. Oh, Grantaire. He grins as he realizes this evens the playing field a little with regards to future conversations about Courfeyrac, but the grin slips away as he remembers he was hoping to rely on Grantaire to speak to the bulk of people today. Clearly, that isn’t an option now.

“Nice to meet you,” Jehan says as the other three wrap up their talk. “I’m Jehan and this is my friend Grantaire.” He savours the joy of introducing Grantaire as his friend so he can write a poem about it later.

Enjolras offers a curt “Welcome,” and Combeferre adds,

“It’ll be so refreshing to have you here! We haven’t had new attendees in a while.” Jehan’s stomach is calming down a tad in the face of their encouragement, but he still has one last nerve-wracking thing to ask.

“Uh, one more thing before you guys start the meeting,” they both look at him expectantly, Enjolras with only a shred of impatience, which Jehan takes as a good sign, “but what are your guys’ pronouns?”

They both look a little surprised, but it is clear this is in a good-to-be-reminded kind of way as Enjolras’ impatience melts and his smile widens. His sheepishness takes away all the rigidity of his face, softening his mouth and deepening the blue in his eyes. Oh, Grantaire, Jehan thinks again, with more than a little sympathy.

Enjolras responds, “We both use he/him.”

“That’s an important thing for us to remember for introductions going forward, so thanks Jehan.” At Combeferre’s addition, Jehan blushes and Grantaire slings his arm around him in a congratulatory way. This surprises and pleases Jehan: Grantaire isn’t shy about pushing Jehan around and teasing him, but he’s not big on hugs, especially in public. He thinks then, with a startling clarity, that this club will be good for them in a number of ways, beyond cozying up to the supposedly-increasing number of attractive crushes.

“Yay! I knew they would be good to have here!” Courfeyrac is jumping on the spot as he says this. “And we haven’t even started the meeting yet!”

Combeferre gives a little start. “We should probably get a move on with that.” He then lets Enjolras take the floor. It is immediately evident (if it wasn’t already) that Enjolras is the head of this rag-tag group. He has _born to lead_ written all over him, from the way he calls the meeting to order to the way everyone else is a flurry of activity to get started.

“Sit by me.” Jehan jumps at Courfeyrac’s whisper in his ear. “I’ll keep you and R up to speed and try to give you the rundown on everyone.” Thankfully, no one seems to notice how much this news, and its _delivery_ , has shaken Jehan; nobody pays him, Courfeyrac, and Grantaire much mind as they make their way to a free half of the ginormous couch. Jehan does manage to step on the toes of the pretty Asian girl from his Humanities class, but she waves away his hushed apologies.

It’s pretty crowded on the couch. Technically, there are six of them squished onto the three cushions, but the female-presenting person with a riot of curls and green lipstick is sitting on the bald person’s lap. The bald person has arms for days – Jehan is sure they could go on a head-busting spree with Enjolras and his combat boots.

“That’s Musichetta and Bossuet – she’s been top of her year in Business as long as I’ve known her,” Courfeyrac whispers. Jehan supposes the rundown is beginning, effective immediately. “Bossuet is unlucky, like, statistically unlucky. He’s nursing a sinus infection from falling into a pond.” Jehan eyes the huge, bald man. Musichetta is whispering into his ear. There’s a tanned blonde boy nestled under Bossuet’s arm who Courfeyrac calls Joly. Joly keeps tracing patterns on Bossuet’s arm and Bossuet keeps giggling that it tickles; Bossuet doesn’t strike Jehan as particularly unlucky right now.

Courfeyrac sees Jehan’s look at the three and leans in even closer. “Yeah, they both definitely lucked out when Musichetta told them she wanted a relationship with the two of them. They’ve got a good thing going.” Jehan watches as both Musichetta and Bossuet reach down to play with Joly’s hair. It’s so blonde it’s almost white, and Jehan is briefly assaulted by images of playing with Courfeyrac’s hair in the same way. The other man is the closest he’s ever been; his hair is brushing Jehan’s ear as it continues to fall out of the nearest pigtail. Whatever hair-care products he uses smell like lavender. It takes all of Jehan’s concentration not to lose himself in a fantasy involving Courfeyrac, his pigtails, his acoustic guitar, and a lavender field.

He focuses on Enjolras’ words instead, using them to pull himself out of his head (Jehan has a tendency to bury himself in layers of thoughts, and he really wants to pay attention to the goings-on around him at the moment, and not just because Courfeyrac is so near.)

Enjolras is talking about their clothing drive, and the scheduling and other preparations that will need to go into it. Courfeyrac quietly explains that the club does a monthly donation drive for different causes – sometimes they do bake sales if people aren’t especially swamped with work. The end of the month is coming up, so they are in full-scale preparation for the clothing drive, which is focusing on scrounging up as much winter wear as can be found for the city’s homeless community as winter rolls up to the club. There is an especial need for children’s clothing. Jehan feels several pangs in his heart as the conversation goes on – he’s noticed some but not all of the monthly drives the group has done, and his past support has been minimal at best. He vows to change this from now on.

Eponine takes the floor. She is in charge of the event; the focus of this month’s drive was at her suggestion. Courfeyrac’s explanation of who she is is unnecessary, as Jehan remembers her from freshman orientation. She had somehow worked a pink floral pattern into accents on her studded leather jacket – of course he remembers her! Her hair is growing in now and he swears he’s going to tell her how much he likes the look on her if he gets a chance after the meeting.

“Alright nerds, I have the sign-up sheets ready, for set up, manning, take down, and delivery to the three shelters. Remember to double and triple check that you don’t have conflicts before you volunteer your time, y’all know the drill.” She fixes the assembled group with a fierce glare. “If you have to cancel on me because of work, not naming names, _Pontmercy_ , I will hunt you down and make you regret ever leaving me short on volunteers. Yes, Bahorel?”

Jehan feels his eyes widen as he takes in the person in question. Bahorel is even more jacked than Bossuet. They have an impressively full beard and eyes that compliment their smile. What Jehan can see of their arms are covered in colourful tattoos.

They lower their hand and smile innocently up at Eponine. She doesn’t look impressed in the slightest.

“Can you elaborate on how you will make people regret leaving you short-staffed? Please?” He (Courfeyrac has supplied that Bahorel’s pronouns are he/him) bats his eyelashes at Eponine, though Jehan is horrified at the prospect of having details on her torture methods – that’s a sure way to make him loose confidence before complimenting her! The puppy-dog eyes Bahorel is putting on make him look surprisingly innocent and fragile. Jehan wonders how many people Bahorel has forced to give in to his will with that look, but Eponine only eyes him disdainfully. It makes Jehan wish he could elbow Grantaire without elbowing Courfeyrac because her eyebrow raises actually rival R’s!

“Anyone who wants details on all my harmful plans and threats,” she finally replies, “see me after the meeting.” Bahorel does some chair-victory dancing at this apparently exciting prospect. He jostles the other boy sitting at his feet, who, Courfeyrac explains, is the aforementioned Pontmercy. His first name is Marius and his pronouns are also he/him.

“I wouldn’t be so excited, B,” Marius gulps. “Ep takes her threats very seriously.” His already pale face has gone even paler, apparently recalling the fateful time he incurred her wrath.

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Bahorel grins. The room begins to fill with wolf whistles and crude comments, but Bahorel brushes it off. “I didn’t mean it like that, you pigs!”

“ _Thank you_ , Eponine.” Enjolras gives her a light pat on the shoulder and she sits back on the floor beside Marius and Bahorel. The girl who suffered Jehan stomping on her feet with a smile is sitting on the other side of Bahorel, on the smaller couch. She leans down and rubs Marius’ shoulder, maybe to console him for enduring Eponine’s callout. Marius just about leaps to his feet he jumps so high. His face turns beet red at her apologetic smile and at Bahorel’s teasing; Eponine stares at her chipped nail polish, seemingly oblivious to Marius’ agony.

Jehan turns to Courfeyrac slightly. Enjolras, Combeferre, and the over-worked redhead Grantaire said was Feuilly are talking at the back of the room, hunched over papers spread across low-sitting tables. Maybe the meeting is taking a five-minute recess?

Anyway, Jehan turns to Courfeyrac and whispers, “What’s the pretty girl’s name over there? The one Marius is hopelessly in love with?”

Courfeyrac lets out a loud HA!, then bites his hand so he doesn’t let out any other offending sounds. Jehan is way too pleased that he made him laugh. For all the gods’ sakes, get a hold of yourself, he chides his brain.

“You mean Cosette?” Courfeyrac snickers.

“Cosette, yes! I couldn’t remember her name. She was in one of my classes last year.”

“I was in one of your classes last year, but you’ve remembered my name. Clearly I made a better impression.” Courfeyrac gives another devastating wink and Jehan feels his throat constrict. It is clear Courfeyrac is joking, but still… He’s positive he has choked on all the spit that was in his mouth.

“Large lecture, you know how it is,” Jehan tries. This tight corner of the couch has never felt tighter, or warmer.

Thankfully, Courfeyrac doesn’t get the chance to push further, because Enjolras and Combeferre come back to the front of the room. Feuilly follows and just…stretches himself out on the rug in front of the singular, grimy window beside the end of Jehan’s couch. He closes his eyes. Jehan doesn’t see how he will avoid falling instantly asleep, puddled in sunlight as he is.

Enjolras calls the meeting back to order. “Ok everyone, we’re gonna move on from the clothing drive and open the floor for new causes to discuss. Don’t forget to sign up for some volunteer time unless you have discussed your prior engagements with me.” He doesn’t make any verbal threats like Eponine, but Jehan gets the sense from the attentive gazes around the room that he doesn’t need to. He can’t imagine crossing Enjolras (not that Jehan can really imagine crossing most people) and he’s not even known him an hour yet. He makes a mental note to check the times for the sign-ups before he and Grantaire leave so they don’t forget.

“Speaking of prior engagements,” Combeferre cuts in, “Feuilly works double shifts all weekend and has to watch his brother on the Friday night. He’s volunteered to hang posters starting this week, but he will need help. Let us know…”

“Grantaire and I can do it!”

The realizations that he has a) interrupted Combeferre and b) volunteered himself and R for something they don’t know the full details of without talking to R come much, much too late, long after the room has fallen quiet with surprise. Jehan gulps. He really wishes his filter wouldn’t choose the worst opportunities to fail him.

Combeferre gives a soft shrug and smile. “Uh, sure, thanks Jehan. Make sure you and Grantaire talk to Feuilly before you leave.”

“Will do,” Jehan mumbles. He fiddles with the split ends of his hair, avoiding glancing at Grantaire in case the other man is angry about being “voluntold”.

The meeting moves on, with various voices, hands, and discussion topics being raised. Nothing sticks in the way of a big project to focus on – there are some proposals for the next monthly drive, for Halloween and Christmas fundraisers, and discussions of the way the city, the school, and other organizations and clubs handle various issues, but nothing seems to satisfy Enjolras’ search for something local to champion.

Jehan wishes he had ideas to share. He routinely finds himself exhausted by the futility he feels in the face of global issues, and then sometimes has great ideas for ways he and other like-minded people could help, but if he doesn’t write them down and keep track of them (two very difficult things for him to accomplish even with less important things like school) they abandon the ship that is his mind. His brain has been carefully blank since he spoke up anyway; he doesn’t think he has it in him for another unexpected outburst.

The sound of Enjolras blowing air through his nose is what makes Jehan look back up again. Enjolras is agitated, pacing the front of the room. Combeferre is standing very still, glasses in one hand and the other pinching his nose. Jehan watches Courfeyrac shoot the handsome man a concerned glance and tries not to let his stomach sink too much. He immediately fails: his stomach falls at light speed watching them communicate with pointed looks and eyebrow raises over Enjolras’ state.

It’s clear this happens frequently enough: everyone else in the room is very quiet as Enjolras mumbles to himself and continues pacing. It makes sense that Courfeyrac and Combeferre would be very close Jehan just… doesn’t want to dwell on those implications.

A soft voice comes from beside Jehan’s fuchsia-socked feet; it is only because the rest of the Amis are so quiet that it gets heard at all.

“I might have something to address.” Enjolras stops pacing and joins everyone in staring at Feuilly. Feuilly hasn’t moved or spoken since he laid down, and his eyes are still closed now, but he raises his voice so everyone can hear.

“I’ve not mentioned it before because we usually have a full line-up of things to address and rallies to attend, and I thought maybe it was just an isolated incident in my class, but I’ve found recently that it’s bigger than I thought.” Jehan watches Feuilly’s voice box bob, and wonders how long whatever this is has been bothering him. “You guys know Professor Thenardier?” There are some vehement nods around the room. Jehan had almost had the professor for an Intro Art History class, but had gotten into the class he really wanted in that slot instead and so had missed this teacher.

Feuilly continues. “He’s this important Art History teacher, right? So I’ve had him a lot in my three years. I’ve never really liked him, thought that was a whole personal preference right? He’s never really liked me, whatever. Since I joined you guys though, I’ve been better at noticing all these little snide comments. They’re subtle, and not only directed at me, but I thought maybe I was overreacting? Any who, I wrote a paper for him earlier this month about historic gender presentation in art and he failed me.” This causes a ripple around the room; clearly Feuilly is not a student professors fail.

“I tried to book a meeting to discuss why ‘cause _obviously_. He wouldn’t see me, said his schedule was booked even though there were slots online and Floreal, who sits beside me, got a meeting like three days after I tried the first time.”

“That’s a little beyond a personal preference for a student,” Bahorel sneers.

Feuilly just nods. Jehan is starting to wonder if his eyes are closed out of necessity to hide tears and feels his heart crack. He doesn’t know Feuilly, or any of them, very well, but he suddenly and vengefully wants to hunt this professor down. Enjolras looks like he wholeheartedly agrees. His fists are clenched and his knuckles are white with the force.

“So I keep emailing him ‘cause like. Eventually he’s gotta give me a meeting, right? Wrong. I got an email yesterday, and, and keep in mind this is like my first response from him since he told me he was booked like two weeks ago. And all the email says is that he failed me because I wrote about all these “imaginary and unsupported notions of gender” and that it was clear I’d written “from a personal bias instead of academically-based fact”. What he means is that I had the _audacity_ to discuss more than the gender binary in my essay and he chose to take all the academic articles and historic studies I had cited as unreliable from his own ignorant-ass perspective!”

The room has gone very silent as Feuilly’s voice has risen.

“Does the fail affect your scholarships badly?” Joly tentatively asks when it’s clear the story has paused for a second.

Feuilly rubs his eyes, then finally sits up and shrugs. “Dunno yet.” He’s staring at his mis-matched shoelaces, though his voice is back to this brittle, cheery tone. “I wish that was the worst part. I did research on some of his early publishings and yeah…He’s a homophobic, racist asshole. Betcha if we asked around he’s done the same as he did to me with lots of students.”

The room erupts, not so much at that latest news, which isn’t very shocking. Now though, as the indignation has had time to settle, they’re all spoiling for a fight. Eponine and Bahorel have stood and are gesturing wildly. Musichetta is scribbling fiercely in her notebook, maybe about the details or ideas she’s having. Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac are shouting thoughts at each other for what they could do next to take this on.

In the midst of all this storming, Feuilly looks very small with his hunched shoulders and rug-flattened hair. Before the thought fully has time to form and be over-examined by his anxiety, Jehan slides smoothly off the front of the couch and ends up sitting just a little to the side and in front of Feuilly.

“I like your shoelaces,” he whispers. Feuilly looks up at him. His eyes are red but a surprised smile flits over his face. The one shoelace has alternating black and orange stripes, and the other has white jack-o-lanterns on a black background.

“Thanks,” he whispers back. Then, because he doesn’t know what else to do, Jehan offers up a flat palm. He’s not sure what he expects Feuilly to do with it, but it feels right when the redhead grabs it and just hangs on for dear life.

Courfeyrac lets out a loud whistle, and the chaos of the room finally subsides.

Bahorel shouting “Shut up, dicks!” doesn’t hurt that effort either.

“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do.” Enjolras’ face is so red it lights the rest of the room like a lighthouse beacon of righteous fury (Jehan makes a mental note to write that phrase down later.) “We can work to help Feuilly draft up a complaint after the meeting. Thenardier’s been here a while, I’m sure there have been complaints lobbied against him before. We’ll look into those records if we can. Combeferre has said he can draw up a petition by Tuesday’s meeting. He’ll get it up online, and then we’ll print copies and begin distributing them throughout school.”

“And just what do you think this will accomplish?” The room goes silent much faster than it did before. Jehan feels dread rise in his chest and take root in his heartbeat.

Enjolras looks at Grantaire like he’s just noticed he’s here. Maybe that’s the truth, Jehan is unsure of how much “real life” gets past Enjolras’ evident single-mindedness. “Uh. The more we get the word out, the more people know about this injustice and can support…”

“Uh huh, sure, but what then?” Jehan has a much better view of Grantaire now that he’s on the floor, and he really doesn’t like the way his friend’s jaw is clenched. There is something bright and unyielding in Grantaire’s black eyes that Jehan has never seen before – it can _not_ bode well.

Enjolras splutters. “We’ll bring our petition to the School Board,” this is said painfully slowly, as if addressing a toddler, “and maybe through sharing it we’ll get some other testimonies and complaints filed…”

“Oh please,” Grantaire scoffs, “you’ll be lucky if people come forward at all, and even if they do, why would the School Board listen to a bunch of punk-ass students?”

Combeferre clears his throat, having apparently decided this back-and-forth should be nipped in the bud. Jehan thinks it’s too late for that, but props to the professor of the group, he supposes.

“According to the Student Handbook, we have the right to object to our classroom treatment and to demand action…”

Grantaire leans back into the couch and crosses his arms. “Oh, you have the right alright, but no one will listen.”

“It’s stated multiple times that they have to listen to an issue with so many names attached!” Enjolras explodes. “If we get enough momentum, they will have to listen to us!”

“It’s cute that you think so, Apollo, it really is. But even if you get enough names on your precious petition, all the School Board has to do is hear you guys out in a meeting. They have to listen, but there’s nothing in any of the school writings saying they have to follow through on these issues.”

“Um?” Everyone looks at Cosette. “Why wouldn’t they follow through though? This guy’s clearly breaking rules and has been for a while. If we can prove…”

“That’d mean they’d have to initiate an investigation first, and the likely-hood of that happening,” Grantaire mimes weighing some scales in front of him, “yeah, not high. Seriously, you guys must have done stuff like this before, or talked to other students who’ve tried. Has the School Board, a panel of old white men, _I might add_ , ever taken action on any petitions?”

“There was the one about the kid who committed suicide,” Bossuet offers weakly. “They expelled the kids who harassed him and revised the On-campus mental health services.”

“That was after he was dead, B, and after several attempts at suggesting revisions of the services went unheard.” Enjolras shoots Eponine a blue-dagger-filled glare and she shrugs, as undeterred as ever. “Not to be that person, but he has a point, Enj.”

“Alright.” Enjolras’ face suddenly clears. This makes Jehan feel no better about the situation; Enjolras is clearly furious and not used to being challenged in such a harsh manner. Jehan is still holding Feuilly’s hand, and when his grip tightens, Feuilly squeezes back.

“This really isn’t good,” the redhead hisses. Jehan can only nod.

“Alright, Grantaire,” Enjolras repeats. “What do you propose we do?”

For the first time in this conversation, Grantaire looks floored. “Uh, I mean…uh, don’t think there’s much you can do…”

“What would you have us do, nothing?!? Just ignore this?!?”

Grantaire’s fingers are tapping incessantly on his knees. “No! It’s shitty, but there’s…” he shrugs helplessly. Everyone watches as he slowly deflates under Enjolras’ glacier gaze. “They won’t listen,” he mumbles, then falls silent in a way that feels inarguably final.

“Look, I’m not saying don’t do the petition, Enj.” Eponine still looks like she wants to fight, but at least she doesn’t look primed to swing at people in _this_ room. “We should do the petition. But that is all we do about school or city-wide issues a lot of the time here, and while it wasn’t the most tactfully made, I think Grantaire’s point is valid. There are other things we can look into, for sure.”

“Talking to other students in a more confidential way might be a good start,” Cosette volunteers. “We could put the club email on the petition with an invite for private discussion if people are worried about coming forward or filing complaints.”

“Maybe talk to some teachers,” Joly says. “I know a few who will be boiling about this.”

Enjolras is still staring at Grantaire, but the others’ words seem to be registering. He nods, finally releasing Grantaire from under his furious eyes.

“Those are good ideas guys. We’ll get those done for Tuesday’s meeting too. Don’t talk to any teachers unless you’re convinced, but yeah, Joly’s point is a solid one: we won’t be alone in this.”

“Feuilly,” Musichetta suddenly says, leaning so far forward to see him around Jehan that Bossuet has to grab her hips to keep her from falling, “how are you feeling about all this? Do you have anything you want to add?”

Feuilly mostly just looks tired and pale now; Jehan unconsciously rubs his thumb over the back of Feuilly’s hand and only notices the action when Courfeyrac looks at their clasped hands with surprise. Jehan flushes. Feuilly shifts on his knees, then holds up the hand that’s encased with Jehan’s for everyone and Musichetta and God, probably, to see.

“Feelin’ a bit better now you guys know and with Jehan here to help. I will brainstorm for some more effective ideas like Grantaire said, but I’ve mostly just been putting off thinking about it ‘til I could tell everyone today. Brain’s a bit of a blank right now.”

“Well, if there’s anything you ever need, hun, you know you can text me about it,” Musichetta smiles.

“Or any of us, for that matter,” Cosette adds. The room is full of warmth and smiles and agreement at that. Even Enjolras’ countenance looks more inviting as he gazes around the room at his friends. It’s hard for Jehan to reconcile the face of this man with the righteously angry group leader who wanted to take down the University School Board with a petition a few seconds ago.

“Alright then,” said leader begins, clapping his hands together; it makes as good a rallying call as any to Jehan. “Then I think that should conclude our discussions for the day. Anyone who wants to can stay to work on posters for the clothing drive or brainstorm further ideas for our campaign against Thenardier and his antiquated classroom and grading notions of gender.” Jehan watches Courfeyrac and Combeferre exchange twin smiles at Enjolras’ words. No, stomach, Jehan thinks, stay where you are, you reactive little bitch.

“Feuilly, you feeling up to talking about officially filing your complaint?” Feuilly nods, and Jehan (belatedly) realizes this means they will have to let go of their hands. This shouldn’t be as saddening as it is to Jehan, but solitary and singularly-friended at the moment as he is, he supposes he doesn’t get a lot of physical affection. Before Feuilly goes over to Combeferre and Enjolras, who have already gathered at the low tables again, he uncaps a Sharpie from his pocket and scribbles on Jehan’s bared wrist. It’s impressive penmanship, given that it’s Sharpie on skin and Feuilly is writing with his left hand. He pats Jehan’s hand once, then lets go and stands.

“Call me about setting up posters, or anytime really. If I’m not working, I’ll answer.” Feuilly shrugs a little sheepishly, but Jehan is glad to see some of the dry wit he’s witnessed at the showcases resurfacing. “Thanks for coming, and, uh. For being kind?”

Jehan chuckles. “You’re welcome.”

He pulls his phone out right then and there to enter the number so it doesn’t wash off on him before he forgets.

“Jehan! Already charming the members of the Amis out of their numbers.” The voice surprises him and Jehan drops his phone. He had forgotten Courfeyrac was still sitting behind him on the couch.

“Oh, well, um…that’s, that’s just about the poster thing, ha ha, not um,” Jehan gulps and tries to catch his breath, “Not anything…else.”

Courfeyrac makes the wise, and kind, decision to change subjects. He gives Jehan a light kick. “Will you stay and help me with the wording on one of my posters?”

“Oh! I um…I think Grantaire might want to go,” Jehan says a little apologetically.

“Why would you think that?”

_‘Cause he decided to antagonize the guy he thinks is hot in front of everyone and he didn’t want to come in the first place?_

“Um…”

Courfeyrac points to where Joly and Bossuet have already absconded with Jehan’s friend. It looks like R is doing some cool paint-splatter-pattern thing on their poster letters – they keep exclaiming over it in awed voices and Grantaire keeps ducking his head so they won’t see him blush. Musichetta is taking pictures on her phone above them.

Jehan briefly entertains getting up and asking Grantaire to head home with him (they live close enough to each other for some great co-dependent bus rides, helpfully.) It has already been a wildly chaotic afternoon, and Jehan has done much better at socializing than he would have ever thought possible, and he even got over his nerves enough to not only have fun but be semi-helpful. He is tired though. He could go home now.

Courfeyrac has his brown eyes widened hopefully at him. Because he wants Jehan to stay. Jehan thinks he would fight any number of mythological creatures if it meant Courf would keep looking at him like that, soft and happy and eager. Surely, fighting off his exhaustion and anxiety can’t be any worse than fighting, say, a Gorgon! Jehan makes up his mind in this moment: he makes up his mind, not only to stay, but to let go of his insane nerves around Courfeyrac. These two encounters have already gone remarkably well, and if he plays his cards right, they can see each other on the regular. They can be friends! Jehan _wants_ to be friends, first and foremost. He can dream about Courf’s beautiful face and all his many smiles at night, but he wants to be friends, and he wants to stop being so fucking nervous about it. So he does his best to let go of his hesitation.

“Ok, show me this poster,” Jehan says. Courfeyrac lets out a cheer so loud he gets a glare from Combeferre, who is helping Feuilly draft his complaint.

Courfeyrac comes with them to the door when Grantaire and Jehan say it’s time for them to leave. Jehan is shocked by how quickly the two extra hours they spent making posters, eating the brownies Cosette brought, and talking with everyone has passed. He _did_ manage to go tell Eponine that he liked her hair, on the same trip around the room where he heaped compliment upon compliment at Cosette for her brownies.

Once he and Courf had finished their pun-ny masterpiece of a poster, they hopped around from group to group to offer advice (sometimes appreciated and sometimes not, all to be taken with a grain of salt) to those still working. Jehan allowed his vow to be more relaxed apply to everyone around him, and felt something he’s not sure has ever been present before unfurl and widen throughout his chest. It makes him feel warm; even now, Jehan can’t keep the stupid grin off his face. Grantaire is more subtle about it – bedazzled jackets that spell out phrases are more subtle than Jehan is on his best day – but Jehan can see how the tension has spilled off Grantaire like raindrops running down leaves. None of the other Amis seem to be holding Grantaire’s suggestive suggestions from earlier against him and everyone still at the Musain makes several demands for the both of them to attend Tuesday’s meeting (Jehan smiles and doesn’t make any clear commitments because he has no clue what Grantaire will want to do and Jehan doesn’t want to do this without him even now.) He even gets a warm hug from Feuilly before he has to run off to his night shift as a receptionist at the university hospital.

Grantaire and Courfeyrac are talking animatedly about this show from their childhood at the door, and showing no signs indicating being in a rush to leave. Jehan tells them he’ll be right back, and, before he lets himself regret this impulse, jogs over to Enjolras.

Enjolras is leaning against the armrest of the large couch, scowling as he types something into his phone with impressive speed.

“Excuse me,” Jehan tries, then also tries not to show how much he is cringing on the inside as Enjolras looks up. His blue eyes look very tired for a split second before they warm a little at seeing Jehan.

“What can I do for you, Jehan?”

“I, um. I just wanted to thank you for having…us…today. I learned a lot, and I really enjoyed it.” He’s not sure about vocalizing the last half of his thought, but then decides to screw it. It’s not like Enjolras is about to think him any less strange or unknown (Enjolras’ own oblivious detachment from things begs the question of what he classifies as strange, but that is a thought to be examined later.)

So Jehan goes, “I’ve been wanting to come to a meeting since I stumbled upon the showcases you guys do, but I was…um. I was scared. And! Can I also ask,”- why stop to breathe when you can just barrel on through to the end? - “what size your boots are?”

Enjolras blinks, and then a slow smile widens across his face. This one is much closer to the relaxed looks he has around his friends than the polite smile he gave Jehan and Grantaire when they first arrived.

“I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispers. “My boots are a kid’s size.” Jehan gapes. Enjolras’ posture doesn’t change, but his eyes twinkle. “I let you in on this knowledge with the full confidence that this will only remain between us, of course.” He narrows his gaze in mock solemnity. “I trust you not to reveal my secret, Jehan.”

Jehan feels like saluting, but he isn’t sure whether such a gesture would go over Enjolras’ head, so he nods firmly instead. “Of course.”

“I’m glad you finally came today. As you can see, we’re not much to be frightened of unless Bossuet feels the urge to dance or someone touches Eponine’s stuff.” Jehan’s smile only widens as Enjolras goes on: “It’d be great to have you back.”

“Jehan!” Grantaire and Courfeyrac are waving at him from the door. “You comin’?”

Something completely at odds with what Jehan has seen from Enjolras today passes over his face at the noise, something vulnerable and naked. Jehan doesn’t have the time to identify it before it passes, but he carefully notes that it was in response to Grantaire’s call. He tucks this mental note away for safe-keeping.

“It’d be great to have you _both_ back. Grantaire’s prompting….was necessary, even if I didn’t react well.” Enjolras looks a little ashamed as he says this, as if Jehan is Grantaire’s keeper or something.

“We’ll be back,” is all Jehan says in response, “if life goes according to plan.”

Enjolras gives him another smile and Jehan heads back over to Grantaire and Courfeyrac.

“Finally!” Grantaire exclaims, even though his face is still bright.

“Grantaire’s making me work hard to get you out of the building,” Courfeyrac pouts. “He’s being so mean! I like having you around, don’t wanna get you to leave.” Jehan’s stomach pitches intensely. It then disintegrates all together when Courf asks if Jehan would be ok with a hug.

“Uh, yeah,” he stutters, “sure.” He prays Courfeyrac can’t hear Grantaire snickering behind him as Courfeyrac opens his arms wide and Jehan is enveloped in the soft yellow of his shirt. Courfeyrac gives him a quick squeeze and a bright smile for the road.

Who needs a stomach when you can have a hug from Courfeyrac?

“Thanks for coming guys! See you on Tuesday!”

Jehan both likes and dislikes that Courfeyrac just assumes they are coming back without asking. Grantaire is still snickering when the door closes behind them.

They are quiet until they are out of the Musain and walking to the bus stop. Jehan is ok with the silence, but then he glances over at Grantaire to see all the mirth has slid off his face and landed in the ditch. In its place is a quiet frown, not quite big enough to be a scowl but perhaps working up there.

“What’s wrong?”

Grantaire ignores him and keeps walking.

“Seriously, R, what’s up? And don’t say nothing, ‘cause I know you were having fun.”

Grantaire heaves a great sigh. “I did have fun, somehow.”

“But…?”

“But nothing. I screwed up, they won’t want me back. Pissed ‘em off on my first day.”

“Courfeyrac seems to think we’re both coming back.”

“Courf doesn’t count.” They’ve made it to the bus stop. Grantaire leans against the sign, fiddling with the zippers on his coat pockets and decidedly Not Meeting Jehan’s Eyes.

“Oh really? And I suppose Eponine doesn’t count either? She supported you!”

Grantaire doesn’t respond, but he does cock his head to look at Jehan.

“ _I_ thought you made a good point,” Jehan says, and joins Grantaire in leaning so that they’ll both be scrabbling for purchase if one of them so much as looses their balance. “It just…maybe could have been made more kindly?”

Grantaire is still feeling mutinous.

“Last time I checked, social justice wasn’t always kind,” he grumbles.

“Well, no. But maybe kindness is the better strategy in getting certain short, blonde club leaders to pay attention to one’s person?”

Grantaire’s toe chooses this precise moment to slide out from underneath him and send his arms flailing in an attempt to avoid face-planting. Jehan chooses to believe this is entirely a coincidence, and not because he has caught his friend out. Jehan is magnanimous like that. He does take over the signpost real estate though, because that seems only fair.

Grantaire is looking very sheepish and abashed, shaking a rock out of his boot. “Caught onto that, did you?”

Jehan rolls his eyes. “Well I’m not an idiot. And I know you better than anyone else there.” This last bit is to ease Grantaire’s mind; it looked like he was going to blow a gasket at the thought of his feelings being transparent.

Grantaire sighs and shakes out his hands before tucking them into his pockets. He needs some proper gloves, maybe Jehan should get him some for Christmas.

“It was a bit of a dick move.”

“Duh. But Enjolras was really the only person you pissed off, and you did that on purpose, for some dumb reason. I think you should come back.”

Grantaire kicks at Jehan’s yellow boots. He’s moved to stand in front of him and the sign now, and it’s nice because he acts as a bit of a buffer against the wind. Then he narrows his eyes down at Jehan.

“You’re really nailing this pep talk.”

“Good thing it’s not a pep talk,” Grantaire raises his What Is It Then eyebrow, “it’s a get-your-head-out-of-your-ass talk.” That makes Grantaire snort-laugh until the bus comes. This results in Jehan being very pleased with himself.

When they get seated, Jehan at the window, he elbows Grantaire lightly.

“I _want_ you to come back with me.” Grantaire just shrugs, looking down at his hands. He’s fished a pen out of his pocket and is drawing a very detailed looking Pokémon that Jehan doesn’t recognize. It’s time for the trump card, then. “ _Enjolras_ wants you to come back,” he says, as nonchalantly as he can manage. The pen stalls.

“He does? He said that?”

“He said it would be great to have us both back, and he made a point of telling me so.”

_Probably because he thought you’d bite his head off if he told you._

Grantaire goes back to his drawing. “Oh.”

Jehan lets him ink his skin in silence for the rest of the ride, and he doesn’t bring up the Amis or Enjolras or even Courfeyrac (even though he really wants to) for the rest of the night (Jehan is doing his best to introduce Grantaire to as many board games as he can, although they do play some video games.) He only brings it up once on Sunday, when he mentions he’s going to get a head start on the planning of an essay because he won’t have much time Tuesday night. Grantaire doesn’t do much more than grunt over the phone at that, but Jehan knows he must be thinking about what Jehan said.

And when Grantaire is waiting for Jehan after he finishes his last class on Tuesday, and heads towards the bus stop with zero acknowledgement that this almost wasn’t the plan, well. Jehan doesn’t say ‘I told you so’ because, not only is he magnanimous, he is judicious in leaving well enough alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoooooo boy. So. This turned into another massive one. I have no excuses, but I will say that introducing at least everyone once is tricky and time consuming. Plus they have to talk about things with actual substance at the meeting.
> 
> Really excited to have finally met almost everyone else. In my stories, either Feuilly or Bahorel ending up being more important than I originally intended, so. In this one it's Feuilly!
> 
> Hopefully Chapter Four will be up a little faster 'cause the next two chapters are not going to be this long, yikes.
> 
> Leave a comment if you're feeling inclined!


	4. Two Steps Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This evidence would not hold up in a court of law,” Grantaire oh so helpfully points out, raising a foreboding finger, “and I don’t think you should be basing anything, decisions OR actions, on this theory you have.”

None of the words are working today and he’s trying so hard and it’s f r u s t r a t i n g!

Maybe it’s the atmosphere; Jehan is sitting on a bench right where the hallway opens up into the main, outdoor quad area, which is well-trafficked and not ideal for quiet poem contemplation. Or maybe he just sucks at structured poetry.

Jehan sighs and closes his notebook. These bouncing thoughts are a sure sign he needs to at least take a break. He’s been sitting here awhile waiting for Grantaire because he finished his literature quiz early, and has been agonizing over the rhyme scheme he chose for this poem for the past twenty minutes. Jehan finds writing free verse poetry much easier than structured stuff, but he loves the intricate rhymes and rhythms of older verses so much! This semester, he’s been forcing himself to attempt more rigid rhymes on top of all his anecdotal and cathartic poems.

This means he’s been sitting here trying to write about his day, but alas, nothing exciting has happened! He’s desperately trying to avoid writing yet another poem about Courfeyrac. _Those_ words spill out so fast and so often Jehan doesn’t think he could stop them if he tried, but he doesn’t want every single thing he writes to be about pining; he wants to be able to write about anything under the sun, including mundane Wednesdays. Bold words though – he’s been staring at his planned rhyme scheme for so long he’s beginning to second guess all his life choices. Not just the artistic choices, no, but all the choices that lead to Jehan sitting here in this echo-y, drafty hallway waiting for Grantaire’s lecture to finish.

“Jehan!”

Across the ever-incoming tide of eclectic art students heading home, Jehan spots Feuilly struggling with a large, high-grade plastic bag. He gets up to go help, but by the time he and Feuilly make it to each other, they’re close enough to the bench for help not to matter.

“Thanks anyway,” Feuilly huffs as he collapses onto the bench. “I’m pleased we have so many posters to hang, or at least I was until I had to lug them all across campus.”

Jehan hums noncommittally. He feels the spurt of mobility Feuilly’s arrival has given him has knocked something loose within his brain. He gives chase, then finally grabs hold of it.

“Ha!” Jehan scribbles in his notebook frantically, until he’s got a couple stanzas and the metaphor has run its course. He is very pleased with himself, tapping his pen on his chin thoughtfully. He only remembers Feuilly is there when he asks what Jehan is doing.

“Writing,” he replies, his head still surrounded by all the words he wants to use.

“Cool! Ever think about sharing anything in there?” Feuilly gestures to the world-worn notebook for emphasis – the cover is littered with colourful creations of paint and Sharpie, the pages stuffed with pieces of fabric, flowers, and cut-outs of all sorts just as much as it is with words.

Jehan’s brain stutters. “Oh, uh…”

Grantaire ambles over, effectively saving Jehan; his timing is truly impeccable sometimes.

“What are you Liberal Arts students doing here?” he says by way of greeting. “This hallway is reserved for disreputable Fine Arts students.”

Feuilly rolls his eyes. “I too am an art student, R.”

Grantaire just quirks his Teasing Asshole Eyebrow. “Sure, but are you disreputable, Mr. Art _History_ Major?”

“We’re here to hang posters, remember?” Jehan cuts in.

Grantaire seems to see the massive bag bursting with colourful paper for the first time. “I do now.”

They start by choosing the most unique and aesthetically pleasing posters to hang here in the art section of the school. Grantaire puts up a fuss because he doesn’t want any of the posters that look too much like his work on these walls (“Someone might recognize I did this lettering and not come to the drive out of spite, I swear!”) Jehan knows a loosing battle when he sees one, at least where Grantaire is concerned, so he waves Feuilly’s attempts off.

“We can put all of Grantaire’s posters in the foyer,” he smirks. “Then everyone in the _whole school_ can see them!” Grantaire rolls his eyes, but there’s no malice behind the gesture. Maybe he just has a thing about his classmates seeing his work? Jehan brushes the thought of why that’s so relatable to him away with brusque force.

They do have a large amount of posters, accumulated from work across three meetings. Combeferre has kindly photocopied the less colourful ones (you need special access codes to get to use the full-colour printers at school) so they have multiples and they try to be discerning about where they hang them. “Will the business majors respond to more or less advertising?” isn’t a question Jehan would have thought of outside of this enterprise, but all three of them give it serious thought (they decide on placing intermittently-spaced posters down the long Business School hallways for some consistent but limited exposure.)

It is a time-consuming task, or, it would feel like one if they weren’t having so much fun. The work goes by quickly as they trade stories about how Jehan and Grantaire met, or about all the sadistic art teachers Grantaire and Feuilly have suffered through. Feuilly makes Grantaire laugh more than anyone else Jehan has been around. He’s so sharp with his come-backs – he could probably write for all those quippy superhero movies and TV shows.

Feuilly’s cell rings as he’s in the middle of taping the corners of a large poster, so Jehan abandons his post to help him work while talking.

The voice on the other end is clearly Courfeyrac. Apparently, he’s wondering if he can move his plans with Feuilly to tomorrow night. Jehan’s traitorous stomach dips, and he’s not sure if it’s born of jealousy or envy or plain loneliness. But, then he comes out of himself enough to register Feuilly’s tonal shift.

“Oh, yeah…sure, Courf,” Feuilly sighs. Between his one hand and Jehan’s two, they’ve gotten the poster on the wall. Feuilly steps back, swinging his now-free hand around in a fist and looking at the ground. Jehan just stands there. He feels trapped by the fact that he heard the beginnings of this conversation.

“Yeah, I swear it’s fine, really.” Feuilly’s voice seems to belay that fact; it’s a voice that is being batted about by many emotions. He catches Jehan’s cautious eye, and something he sees in Jehan’s expression must give away how worried Jehan is about him – his face immediately morphs into a plastered smile. Jehan supposes Courfeyrac could have also expressed concern at the sound of Feuilly’s voice, but that doesn’t make him feel any better about being caught actively listening.

“No worries! Have fun!” Feuilly chirps, before hanging up the phone. His words are still ringing falsely about the hallway as his cheery smile drops and Grantaire rounds the corner. He has finished taping the rest of the posters.

He takes one look at the redhead and asks, “What’s up, Feuilly?” The question brings with it all the genuine concern Jehan knows Grantaire doesn’t like to let people in on. Feuilly’s demeanour is demolished enough to warrant such a response though, even from Grantaire.

He shrugs. He clearly doesn’t want to meet their eyes. Your eyes can let people in on how much you’re hurting, Jehan thinks, but so can _avoiding_ other’s eyes.

“Courfeyrac has some Tinder date tomorrow, had to move it to tonight…he was supposed to help me with some…stuff.” Feuilly’s fists are swinging aimlessly again.

Grantaire looks sharply at Jehan at the words _Tinder Date_ , just quick enough to raise his Oh Shit, Ok Eyebrow and then turn back to Feuilly.

_Process this later, Jehan. Do NOT think about it now_.

Jehan shakes his head to dislodge his thoughts. “Is there anything we can do?” Feuilly shakes his head no. “You could come over to my place, hang out with us after you’re done your stuff?”

_Don’t think about it now, Jehan. Just help Feuilly_.

Out of his peripheral vision, Jehan sees Grantaire snap his head to him again. Someone less observant than Grantaire could grasp the train of Jehan’s thoughts, so Jehan is sure Grantaire has comprehended them fully. But, Feuilly finally looks up and Jehan decides that’s the more important reaction to focus on.

“Sure.” As Feuilly scuffs his feet, the idea seems to gain momentum in his head. “Yeah… I’d like that.”

And that’s how they end up eating much later than planned at Jehan’s place ‘cause they wait for Feuilly to come back from his errands (they order Chinese.) Then they watch all of Jehan’s old favourite Disney movies, which no one ever has the proper amount of admiration for (he doesn’t care what you say, _The Hunchback of Notre Dame_ and _The Great Mouse Detective_ are Disney’s best films!)

It’s more than a lot of fun, and a great pick-me-up for all of them in the middle of an October week. It’s also a great distraction from the tumult Jehan’s thoughts have become, which he finds a pleasant surprise. He laughs and throws onion rings at Grantaire because Grantaire finds them disgusting, and he and Feuilly have a discussion about historic writings and gender that goes so late it threatens to leave all three of them bleary-eyed in the morning.

But Grantaire and Feuilly do eventually leave. And when they do, with them they take all of Jehan’s distractions and inconsequential thoughts.

He is left with two _very_ consequential thoughts, and they loop through his brain over and over and over throughout the night:

  1. Courfeyrac has a Tinder Date
  2. Feuilly’s despondency about said date almost certainly means he has feelings for Courfeyrac.



* * *

To give credit where credit is due, Grantaire waits until their scheduled movie night on Saturday to bring up these topics.

Since it was their third time coming back to the Amis that afternoon, Jehan was able to pull himself together and enjoy the discussions and the company. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t been watching Courfeyrac and Feuilly interact with a keen, new eye – looking at Courfeyrac had set parts of Jehan’s chest to burning, but only in a few more concentrated areas than usual, which Jehan takes to mean he has a handle on things. The things being…not addressing or dealing with his conclusions from Wednesday at all, or until he’s finally forced to.

He is honestly and truly doing _just great_ until he comes back from the bathroom in the middle of their watch of _Synecdoche, New York_.

When Jehan sits back down, Grantaire doesn’t immediately press play on the movie. Instead, he turns to Jehan’s end of the couch, fiddling with the corner of his fuzzy Chapters blanket (Jehan doesn’t like chain stores, but he has one weakness and it is Chapters’ fuzzy blankets.)

“Are we ever gonna talk about Wednesday?”

“Why would we?” Jehan is trying his damnedest, but obfuscation will never be his strong suit. He gets up with the pretense of grabbing more licorice, but that’s a weak move at best.

It is clear he’s fucked up; he comes back to Grantaire’s decently-long legs stretched out to the end of the couch.

“You get to sit back down after we’ve talked about this.”

“Why, ‘cause you want to get all touchy-feely?”

Grantaire gives Jehan an extremely unimpressed look. It is wry, but it also carries a weight and an open-ness with it that cuts at Jehan’s feelings.

“You should know by now that I don’t, like, _mind_ talking about feelings with you, dude. I was under no illusions about who I was dealing with when I went for lunch with you.” Grantaire crosses his arms with a challenge: “Why all the hesitation?”

Jehan thinks about asking why Grantaire was so nervous about sharing his sexuality with him _or_ why he constantly antagonizes Enjolras at meetings _or_ even why he doesn’t want his classmates to see posters he made, but Jehan isn’t _that_ cruel or in denial. He entertains those thoughts, then deflates, asking himself instead why his first instinct is to deflect with cruelty instead of answering Grantaire.

He kicks at the leg of his thrifted coffee table. “I think Feuilly has a crush on Courfeyrac. Maybe more than a crush.”

“Yeah?”

Jehan nods and swallows around the lump in his throat. “Yeah.” He looks back up at Grantaire. “What do you think?”

Grantaire blows air out his nose. “I mean, it’s a possibility. I can’t say it didn’t occur to me.”

“But…do you think it’s true?”

“Jehan, do you think the art student who’s never even had his first kiss is good at reading feelings like that? And shouldn’t you, you know, like, not be assuming any of this?”

Jehan shrugs. He doesn’t think he can explain the sinking surety he feels about Feuilly’s crush on _his_ crush in a way that would make sense. This is just something he feels, and Jehan puts a lot of stock in things he feels, even when faced with limited reasoning.

“I know Feuilly believes in the fluidity and labelless-ness of sexuality in general, especially his own, so Courfeyrac’s fair game. And you saw how disappointed he was.”

“This evidence would not hold up in a court of law,” Grantaire oh so helpfully points out, raising a foreboding finger, “and I don’t think you should be basing anything, decisions OR actions, on this theory you have.”

“Since when do I ‘take action’ on anything? It’s not like I ever _had_ a game plan where Courf was concerned.” Jehan’s not sure whether he wants to laugh or cry right now and DAMMIT he was doing so well! He tries to think of a way to rub the beginnings of tears from his eyes subtly, but can’t. All Jehan can think about is the way Courfeyrac’s breezy voice rang out from the other end of the phone and the way Feuilly’s face crumpled so quickly, collapsing like an old star. Jehan rubs his eyes anyway, even though Grantaire can see full well. Fuck hiding his emotions.

Grantaire smiles a smile tinged with sadness – he must not want Jehan to break down completely. “Well, if there was no game plan, that doesn’t have to change.”

Jehan blanches. “It doesn’t?”

“Uh, no? Just keep getting to know the Amis and be friends with Courfeyrac. It doesn’t have to be that difficult.”

This is equal parts reassuring and demoralizing, even if Jehan feels the edges of the tension in his chest (that has been mounting since Wednesday night, who is he kidding?) crumble off. He murmurs, “Then why does it _feel_ so difficult?” It feels like admitting something much bigger than what he is. It feels like tearing something alive out of his chest.

“Aw man,” Grantaire sighs, “I have to let you back on the couch if that’s the case!” He sits up, making a big show of moving his legs; Jehan giggles a little pathetically. He’s not quite crying, but he feels as if one last word would be the killing blow to the _I’m Fine_ armour.

Grantaire pats the couch cushion his legs have just vacated; it's right beside him. “Come here.” Jehan sits down tentatively because he’s unsure if Grantaire meant for him to sit this close. Jehan’s own Chapters blanket sits far away on the other side of the couch, crumpled up and unnecessary if Grantaire means to share his own. Grantaire rolls his eyes and lifts both his left arm and the blanket corner up in what looks like an invitation. But he can’t mean…

“Um.” Jehan feels like a total idiot to be asking this, but he thinks not asking would be far worse. “Are you…inviting me to snuggle/lean on your shoulder?”

“Ugh! You just had to make it weird. Yes dumbass, cuddle in!” Jehan lets out a half sob, half surprised laugh and does what he’s told. Grantaire puts his raised arm around Jehan’s shoulders and shakes him a little. “I don’t think you’re overreacting man, feelings are feelings, but I do think you’re maybe jumping to some conclusions?” Jehan just sighs. He feels the weight of the week past pressing down on his eyelids – he doesn’t have anymore debates or answers. Grantaire turns the movie back on without another word.

They’ve almost finished the movie when something Grantaire said earlier finally registers with Jehan:

“Hey,” he nudges R lightly with the closest elbow, “You’ve never had your first kiss?”

Grantaire groans, turning his face away. “I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned that.”

Jehan watches him writhe for a few minutes out of the corner of his eye. Grantaire covers his face with his hands, then lets one dark eye peek out through his fingers. “Why, have you?”

Jehan nods. “Let’s not talk about that though.” His voice goes very quiet.

“Oh, sure. Sorry.” Jehan is thankful Grantaire drops it, a quick memory of that old familiar face passing through his mind before he can banish it. He snuggles into Grantaire’s side a little closer for comfort and feels no shame about it. He smiles, Grantaire tightens the arm that’s resting around Jehan’s shoulders. Jehan feels the hand covered in marker and paint rub comforting circles as the credits roll; he won’t mention it to his friend, but that sensation isn’t one he’s going to let his mind forget anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, as promised: a shorter chapter! I did it!
> 
> Chapter Five is giving me more trouble than I thought it would, and my life is a little crazy right now (back to school stuff, you know how it goes) so it might be a little while before the next update shows up. It is...also going to be long I think. Oh well! 
> 
> More Feuilly, because I love me some Feuilly.


	5. One Hope...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jehan pipes up: “I’d be happy to do some writing for this if you don’t mind it being a little more prosaic than standard journalism.” Both Enjolras and Combeferre look relieved at that – their twin smiles fuel Jehan’s bravery enough that he stands up and sits beside Courfeyrac on the couch. Courfeyrac taps Jehan’s knee in an absent-minded ‘I need to fidget’ way. Jehan plans not to freak out too much, even internally. He will just never move his knee from this spot again.

Jehan is at the following Saturday meeting of the Amis and he is getting worried; Grantaire said he had some errands to run before the meeting so to take the bus without him. He said he would eventually be there. _Eventually_ is taking a lot longer than Jehan would have hoped (what kind of errands does Grantaire need to run? Does he even know where the closest grocery store is?) Jehan got to the meeting early in hopes of talking more to Courfeyrac, but Courf’s been holed up in the little side room with Combeferre and Enjolras since Jehan arrived. At least he’s not hiding away with Feuilly, he thinks.

He hears footsteps and cranes his neck backwards. He feels his hair pull against the shaggy carpet. Since Jehan is lying on the floor, he gets an eyeful of some colourfully mis-matched, upside-down shoelaces. One pair has stripes of black, grey, and white, and the other pair is a solid lime green.

“Feuilly, hi!” he cries. “I was just thinking about you!” Feuilly smirks, but his cheeks are faintly covered in a blush at this admission. Jehan _literally_ dies, and so to cover his death with something, anything, else, he latches onto the first thing he can.

“I like your shoelaces!”

“Oh, thanks.” Feuilly seems just as glad for the subject change. “They’re the colours of the agender flag.”

“Oh!” Jehan is surprised by that. He sits up too fast, sways as his vision spots for a few seconds. Then, he looks over at Feuilly, who has joined him on the ground. “I didn’t know people who were agender used…” he trails off as he realizes how dumb that sounds,

“Used gender-specific pronouns?”

Jehan nods and Feuilly shrugs.

“I mean, agender people can use whatever pronouns they want, just like everyone else. I don’t have experience with gender dysphoria, so I feel like the male pronouns fit just fine. I don’t identify with any gender more than the other, I just feel really neutral about the whole thing. He and him are what have always described me and that doesn’t affect my gender neutrality, so. Yeah.”

“Cool. That makes sense, I’ve just…never thought about that before.”

He really hasn’t. Since he was on his own so much as a kid, he had tons of time to explore the libraries and bookstores and later the internet when it finally made its way into rural areas. He was interested in gender definitions, terms, and discussions really early on. It made so much sense to Jehan, all of it - it could maybe explain all the things about himself he didn’t yet understand. He spent junior high and high school questioning and nitpicking his gender identity apart, then stitching it back together again. Learning more about sexuality and gender presentation had helped him figure out where he stands on that, but aside from making sure pronouns are always respected around him, Jehan hasn’t done much more gender learning since he started uni. He should definitely change that. This conversation with Feuilly is clearly a well-timed indicator.

Feuilly starts un-tying and retying his agender laces; Jehan clocks the subtle mood shift for later processing.

“I actually don’t talk about it a lot at school, even here,” Feuilly rolls his head to clearly indicate the room and the club it hosts. “It’s nice to get the chance.”

Jehan apparently doesn’t even need to ask the question that’s burning up in his mouth – Feuilly doesn’t so much as glance at Jehan before he’s answering it: “I’m so busy it’s a miracle if I can even get to more than one meeting a week. Doesn’t leave much time for thorough gender discussions with my friends.” Jehan wonders if Feuilly is thinking of Courfeyrac as he says this.

“But your friends would love to have those discussions with you!”

Feuilly nods, acquiescing Jehan’s point still without looking at him. His hands are busy retying his laces for the third time.

“It’s exhausting though, sometimes. I feel like if I bring it up I’ll have to explain every little detail about my identity and others. And sometimes I don’t even notice when an opportunity arises to bring it up!”

Then make an opportunity, Jehan thinks, then immediately feels guilty. As if he can understand Feuilly’s specific exhaustion. As if Jehan himself is good at recognizing and taking opportunities when they cross his path, let alone creating new ones.

Feuilly finally, _finally_ , meets Jehan’s eyes. Feuilly’s are a weird shade in between brown and grey. Jehan likes them, and likes that he’s looking more people in the eye as of late. He is seeing more eye colours and beauty than ever before. He’s been missing out!

Feuilly applauds, “I think more of those opportunities will pop up with you around though, man. It’s already been so nice to have someone else in the club who speaks up about things like that.”

“Speaks up about what?”

The new voice clearly startles Feuilly: he jumps almost as high as Marius is prone to around Cosette. This both makes a ton of sense and sinks Jehan’s stomach faster than the Titanic when he confirms who the voice belongs to. Courfeyrac plants himself in-between and above Jehan and Feuilly, perching jauntily on the edge of the couch behind them.

“What kinds of things does our dear Jehan speak up about?” Courfeyrac repeats. Feuilly has gone back to tightening and tying his laces, so Jehan takes it upon himself to answer.

“Just some gender things. Feuilly was telling me about some stuff I didn’t know.”

Courfeyrac nods once. He swings his feet out from underneath him; one foot gets Jehan in the shoulder and the other one brushes Feuilly’s elbow. “I like when you wear those shoelaces, Feuilly,” is all Courfeyrac says. Oh, so he clearly knows. Jehan thanks the gods he was tactful in his explanation of their conversation all the same.

The three of them spend the rest of their time waiting for the meeting to start by sharing their individual struggles and thoughts on gender. Courfeyrac has some great perspectives from the Indigenous stories his grandparents from the Dene Tha' First Nations in northern Alberta told him – it’s stuff neither Jehan nor Feuilly has heard before, and Courfeyrac is a talented story-teller. Jehan feels like he’s coming out of a movie theatre to be met by the glaring light of day when Enjolras finally calls the meeting to order. Shaking his awareness away from Courfeyrac’s voice and the images it paints is that disorienting. It’s like he has to peel his eyes off of Courfeyrac’s bright face, though surely Jehan is imagining that they’re watering as he does so.

When he gets his bearings back, Jehan looks around, praying to see Grantaire. Grantaire is not present. Neither is Eponine. His disappointment tastes strong and bitter; maybe today is finally the day Grantaire gets out of attending a meeting. But Jehan was sure he was enjoying them, or, at least enjoying staring at Enjolras! Why wait ‘til the fifth meeting you’re attending to flake out on everyone?

By the looks of his still, marble face, Enjolras has also clocked the missing members. Jehan is sure he can’t be pleased, but Enjolras hides his displeasure a lot better than Jehan does. If his back is a little stiffer and straighter than usual, Jehan doesn’t think anyone else notices.

“Well, we should just start,” Enjolras is saying, just as the door blows open and bounces on its hinges.

“Hold your horses everyone!” Grantaire calls. “We’ve done it!!!!!” He poses in the doorway, arms akimbo. Everyone around Jehan looks a little taken aback, but he isn’t sure if it’s from the surprise or from Grantaire’s smile. He is beaming to rival Courfeyrac (and the sun.) “We’ve found a great way to spread the word about our campaign against Prof. Thenardier!”

“Ok, I know we’re great, but can you get out of the _way_ , lardass?” Eponine pushes past him into the room and Grantaire almost falls over, but even this can’t dim his grin.

“Care to explain?” Combeferre is giggling and blinking very fast. Everyone else is still flabbergasted – it doesn’t look like Enjolras has taken a breath since Grantaire burst in (Jehan knows this because he immediately looked to see Enjolras’ reaction.) Jehan doesn’t think he’s seen Enjolras look this disarmed before. He catches Courfeyrac glancing at Enjolras too, watches the sly grin steal across the drama student’s face in response to whatever he thinks he sees in Enjolras’ glance.

“Eponine had a great idea earlier today and she texted me about it,” Grantaire says as he strides into the room. He’s brandishing what looks like a bunch of copies of a school newspaper.

Eponine explains further: “My sister works on her high school newspaper – the whole newspaper exists because of her. And it suddenly occurred to me that our school also has a campus-wide newspaper with a website dedicated to it as well.” That seems to clue in the rest of the Amis, although Marius is still looking a little lost, bless him. (Jehan supposes the flirting tactic of pretending to need things explained must work a treat for Marius, because most of the time he genuinely does need some assistance.)

Grantaire is handing out his copies of the newspaper. He is bouncing around without an ounce of sarcasm to go along with it.

“R said he knew some kids on the paper, so we ambushed a bunch of them today as they were finalizing their Monday issue. As a student group, we’re allowed to buy some space in the paper and write about all the things Prof. Thenardier is doing.”

“Hell yeah!” Bahorel cracks his knuckles. “Let’s get Combeferre on this thing, we can really take him to task!”

Eponine chuckles a little wryly. “Well, we can’t name-call or anything like that. Gotta be tactful and decent with these sorts of things…”

“Exactly!” Bahorel counters, “Combeferre is perfect!”

Courfeyrac gives a wolf whistle. Jehan wishes such mundane things wouldn’t toss and turn his stomach so, but then Courfeyrac adds, “We should get Jehan on that too! He’s quite the little wordsmith.” Jehan lets out a very undignified eek! but the interested murmur that rises from the group manages to drown it out. The gods get another heartfelt thank you for letting Jehan meet his maker in peace, without all of the Amis as his witnesses.

“Anyway,” Grantaire has finally finished handing out his papers, “these are just the templates of the standard format the paper uses. Thought we should share them with y’all so we can figure out what space we want and how much and for how long yada yada.”

“And if we want to put the word out in the paper and online at all,” Eponine adds.

“Oh yeah, that too.” Grantaire’s face dims for a second, but really and truly only for a second. “I don’t know about you guys, but I feel good about this idea.” Jehan thinks that’s the first time he’s heard Grantaire publicly admit to liking something discussed at an Amis meeting. Not only that, but he was instrumental in developing this plan he and Ep are putting forward! Warm pride blossoms; Jehan pictures it as the pink peach tree blooms he was always trying to get his grandma to plant – it feels just as vibrant and cheerful as they’ve always seemed to him.

“I agree with Grantaire.”

Grantaire’s not the only one of the group who blanches when Enjolras says this, but he does go sheet white in one instant, and then blushes like mad in the next. Thankfully, Enjolras is as oblivious as usual.

“It’s a _great_ idea, actually. I may even forgive you guys for almost being late.” He smiles at Grantaire _specifically_ , and Jehan changes his mind about being thankful for Enjolras’ dumbasser-y. He’s going to give Grantaire a heart attack if he’s not careful!

It’s because of this that Jehan decides to act. That’s what he tries to tell himself (it’s definitely not about Courfeyrac maybe thinking highly of Jehan’s next words, no, not that at _all_.)

“Maybe we should ask Feuilly if he’s ok with telling what’s happened to him to possibly the entire student body before anything else happens?” Instantly, he regrets opening his mouth. Twelve pairs of eyes turn to bore through Jehan. He feels that if he looks down, he will see twenty-four little red dots like the movies use to show a sniper’s mark. God, why does the mere act of people staring at him make Jehan want to shrink into a speck of dust? He still stands by what he’s said, but it occurs to him - as he disintegrates - that Grantaire may not have appreciated Jehan being the one to bring the opposition position forward.

Jehan feels the heat rising to his cheeks as the rest of the group continues to stare. Sweat is collecting on his palms. He wants to wipe them off, but he doesn’t want to concede such weakness, not in front of everyone here. Maybe some of them (he’s not at the stage of calling them friends yet, though perhaps almost?) aren’t looking at Jehan in anger, but he can’t tell. His heartbeat is pounding in his ears and his vision is going spotty again, though Jehan hasn’t moved. Frantically, he tries to go over what he said and how he said it, if it was at all harsher than he intended. His brain remains blanketed in rising panic and doesn’t provide any good answers.

“It’s fine, I really like the idea guys.” Feuilly jumps in before Jehan’s head explodes or anything else drastic happens (with Les Amis de l’ABC you can never be too sure.)

“Good to check all the same, before we move forward,” Combeferre says, and there are agreeing nods all around. Jehan takes a couple of breaths and feels his heart rate drop down to a more regular tempo. They’re fine, he’s fine. Everything is _fine_.

“I wish we’d thought of it sooner though – I kinda have to start prepping for midterms now if I want to survive the full science course load I have this semester. I won’t have a lot of time to write extra things for the paper.”

“Oh please, we all know you’ve already got your study schedule planned to a perfect T. Don’t tell me you don’t know exactly how much time you need to devote to each of your courses.”

Combeferre smiles indulgently at Courfeyrac through his cool glasses. His nose scrunches adorably. “Precisely. Which is why I know I have very limited time to squeeze anything else in.” Jehan watches Joly and Bossuet make gagging motions at each other – is it about Combeferre’s study plans, or the smiles he and Courfeyrac are giving each other? Ok, that really is going too far into the obsessive theories, he tells his brain.

To distract himself from his (too keen) observations, Jehan pipes up: “I’d be happy to do some writing for this if you don’t mind it being a little more prosaic than standard journalism.” Both Enjolras and Combeferre look relieved at that – their twin smiles fuel Jehan’s bravery enough that he stands up and sits beside Courfeyrac on the couch. Courfeyrac taps Jehan’s knee in an absent-minded ‘I need to fidget’ way. Jehan plans not to freak out too much, even internally. He will just never move his knee from this spot again.

“I’d love to help too, if that’s ok with you, Jehan?” Cosette asks. “I know this is about Feuilly first and foremost, but a lot of the people who have reached out to us already are female students who have suffered a lot of sexist comments and policies from Thenardier. I have a lot of thoughts I’d like to offer on that?”

“Totally!” Jehan says.

Enjolras is nodding along to what Cosette’s been saying, almost as if there is a beat underlying her thoughts. “That’s another really strong idea. The more people we have writing on this, the more perspectives we showcase and the more students will see how many issues there are with Thenardier as a professor.” Everyone is nodding now, and there are big smiles all around the room. All of the sudden, here is something more tangible they can do to Take! Thenardier! Down!

Jehan pulls his phone out as the conversation bounces around with more and more people contributing to what they could possibly write (‘Chetta wants in on helping Cosette with the sexism angle, Bahorel, Bossuet, and Combeferre have collected a lot of students coming forward with racism complaints as well, Feuilly and Courfeyrac want to help everyone with everything…) He pulls up his messages to Grantaire and types.

_Look at the stir you’ve caused! :)_

And then, because he is first and foremost a sap:

_Know this is cheesy, but I’m proud of you_.

Grantaire gets the text almost immediately. Jehan can see him smile from where he is sat across the room beside Eponine. He watches as Grantaire, still smiling, types his response and then raises his middle finger at Jehan without looking up.

_Thanks. I will accept the cheese…for now…_

_Are you man enough to thank me for making you come to the meetings yet?_

Grantaire does look up when he gets _that_ text, flipping Jehan off with both his hands this time. Unfortunately for Grantaire, Courfeyrac sees this.

“Grantaire!” he yells. “Leave sweet Jehan alone, or I take no responsibility for what happens next!” Jehan’s heart leaps into his throat and stays there, hoisted up by surprise and strung out in perfect alignment for target practice by expectancy. He isn’t as embarrassed by Courfeyrac’s yelling as he might have once been (in that long ago time-frame of three weeks past) but he is rendered breathless. Don’t ask why; Jehan has a million and one reasons and none of them are precise enough to describe what he feels at this moment.

Grantaire has no qualms about yelling back: “Jehan can fight his battles himself. He can take me down with no effort!”

“Oh, but you’ve mistaken my warning for you as concern for Jehan; I know he can take you, I just want to preserve your pride.”

Grantaire laughs, shakes his head, and stands. He walks over to their couch as he says, “I’m not gonna argue with you on this one, man. He’s my best friend. He’ll beat me up because I just won’t fight back.”

_Best friend_. Jehan’s heart quivers in his throat and makes it hard to swallow.

“I can’t imagine you, R, would back down from a fight.” Grantaire had perched himself on the coffee table in front of Jehan and Courfeyrac. He falls backwards onto it at Enjolras’ unexpected comment. The blonde leader has come over to their small group while none of them noticed.

Grantaire recovers remarkably fast from his collapse; he plays if off as lying down, propping his hands behind his head and gazing up at Enjolras.

“That’s where you’re wrong, Apollo. I am a coward about many, many things.” It would be a funny thing to say in context, but Grantaire’s face is set in stone and his voice is so serious that Jehan finds nothing about this conversation amusing anymore.

Enjolras stares at Grantaire for a moment. “Don’t call me Apollo,” is all he says in response, and then he sits in the empty spot beside Jehan on the couch. He wants to talk about what Jehan wants to write, about how much space he’d like to work with (Combeferre thinks a moderate-sized article on the second page would be the best option.)

Combeferre and Feuilly gesture to Enjolras, Jehan, and Courfeyrac from where they are labelling large sheets of paper and taping them to the window – Jehan assumes this is one of the many infamous ways Combeferre plots his intricate plans; they’ve ranged from studying to going head-to-head with his private high school’s headmaster (Courfeyrac is so fond of telling that story Jehan has already heard it twice in the last two weeks.)

Courfeyrac and Jehan go over to the other planners without hesitation. Enjolras is slower to follow. Jehan watches him stand and nudge Grantaire with his leg. Grantaire is pretending to sleep where he is, still stretched out on the coffee table. It can’t be very comfortable, but he looks the picture of tranquility. He cracks one eye open and squints up at Enjolras. Enjolras says something to him, but whatever it is, Jehan can’t make it out. Grantaire opens both eyes. He looks dumbfounded, and then he nods slowly. When a shy smile spreads across his face, Jehan knows this is a private little moment he is witnessing. He turns back to the task at hand, so he doesn’t catch what Grantaire says in response. He keeps thinking about his thoughts from the first meeting he and Grantaire attended, about how beneficial this club might be for the both of them.

“Does that work for you, Jehan?” Combeferre asks.

“Sorry, what?”

“Do you have time to meet up at Courfeyrac’s place Wednesday afternoon to finalize what we’re gonna print in the paper for the next few weeks? That give you enough time to write something out?”

Jehan swallows. The words _Courfeyrac’s place_ keep bouncing around in his head. They don’t leave room for many other thoughts, and they’ve definitely bounced into the part of the brain that controls coherent speech.

“Uh yeah. Sure…um. Definitely!” He tries to smile to take away from the weirdness of his statement and it seems no one pays any attention - Combeferre launches back into the details of the plan (of which Jehan obviously missed while he was eavesdropping on Enjolras and Grantaire) Feuilly just shakes his head a little and smiles at Jehan, and Courfeyrac wants a fist bump because he’s excited about hosting.

When Enjolras finally does come over, the five of them spend the rest of the meeting talking and planning this first article in the paper. Jehan leaves the meeting feeling excited and ready to use his words to help his new friends.

It isn’t until later that the doubt seeps in.

* * *

“Jehan! Is that it!” Jehan is pulled from his private musings by Grantaire’s excitement; he knows these fields so well his mind can wander to far off places even more easily when he’s faced with them.

Grantaire is pointing to the farmhouse that is just visible now as they climb out of a small river valley.

“No, son, that’s the main house,” Jehan’s grandpa says from the front of the truck. “Joy and I live in the cottage we built when Jehan came to live with us permanently.”

Grantaire nods. He has had his face pressed against the window since Pop picked them up after the meeting. Apparently, even something as simple as the canola fields are a novelty to him. It is super endearing, and has made for a very entertaining car ride.

Jehan knows he hasn’t been very talkative on this drive. He knows that hasn’t made it easy for Grantaire with his grandpa. But he can’t seem to help it.

The way R had balked when Jehan asked him if he wanted to go home with him for Thanksgiving is fresh in his mind (“Thanksgiving was last weekend, Jehan, or did you miss the Monday we had off?”) No, Jehan had not missed nor forgotten when Thanksgiving (proper, Canadian Thanksgiving) was. He and his grandparents just always celebrate the week _after_ Thanksgiving. Nan always has more than enough work cut out for her by catering to her side of the family. It’s long been both a point of contention and pride for Jehan’s grandma that no one else ever helps her prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Pop’s side of the family has never been big into large, happy gatherings or meals. So, instead of trying to cram Jehan and his grandpa into her family’s lavish celebrations, Jehan’s grandma always saves her best ingredients and recipes for a little three-person dinner the weekend after the Thanksgiving craziness. It’s one of the reasons Thanksgiving is one of Jehan’s favourite holidays (second only to Halloween) – it becomes a celebration of the food his grandparents have spent all year growing and a celebration of his family, encompassing the only two people Jehan has ever needed. This year, it’s expanded to be a four-person celebration, encompassing his new favourite person.

Besides, the fact that Grantaire himself didn’t go home for a regularly-scheduled Thanksgiving celebration is not lost on Jehan (and it would be pushing it to suggest that two families have strange, belated Thanksgiving traditions.)

Jehan tries to keep all this in mind, because as excited and thankful he is that Grantaire is here with him, he knows R must also be pretty nervous. Jehan would be near catatonic in Grantaire’s shoes.

Jehan glances over at his best friend and smiles. “I bet Nan has cleaned every inch of the cottage because she knows you’re coming.”

Pop laughs. “Why do you think I insisted on driving to pick you up? The hour drive into the city doesn’t spare me much cleaning, but it’s better than slaving over the baseboards all day!”

“Tell her that I’m expecting nothing but the cleanliest of baseboards now, brought my inspection tools and everything.”

It’s been like this the whole car ride. Good, it’s been _good_ , it’s just that…Jehan can’t seem to get Courfeyrac out of his mind, especially after today’s meeting. Courfeyrac complimenting Jehan’s writing, Courfeyrac patting Jehan’s knee, Courfeyrac teasing Grantaire in the guise of defending Jehan…And where Courfeyrac’s smiling face has been renting space in Jehan’s head since last fall, there is now also a certain redhead. Jehan can’t help but think of Feuilly when he thinks of Courfeyrac these days; it’s like they’ve become a packaged-deal. For all I know, they could be, Jehan sulks. He feels like (lightly) bashing his head against the window to disrupt the rushing rapids of his thoughts, but that would alarm his grandpa and lead Grantaire to ask more painful questions about why he’s so sure Feuilly has similar feelings for Courfeyrac. No solace to be found here.

And Jehan’s not even jealous of the person Courfeyrac had An Actual Date with; it would be so much easier if he was! But nooooooooooo. He has to be jealous of someone he also really likes, someone who is hard-working and, like, the smartest ever and who doesn’t have time to eat lunch most days but does find the time to change his shoelaces on the regular. Someone who is quickly becoming a close friend at the same time Jehan is just getting to know Courfeyrac better. It isn’t fair!

As the farm fields go by, Jehan thinks about how comfortable Feuilly and Courfeyrac are with each other. Admittedly, Courfeyrac is comfortable with everyone, or so it seems. But he’s softer with Feuilly, still just as warm and bubbly but less…glaringly bright? Feuilly relies on him a lot, and Jehan can see Feuilly doesn’t like to rely on other people (sound like anyone else Jehan knows? He definitely doesn’t shoot R a glance as the thought crosses his mind, nope!)

Jehan is even more convinced after today’s events that Feuilly has a crush on Courfeyrac, so now the conundrum is just what exactly Courfeyrac feels. He had a date with someone else, so maybe he doesn’t feel the same…? Or maybe he’s just really heavily in denial? Maybe it’s a coming-to-terms-with-sexuality thing? It would be a gross assumption to make that just because Courf is a flamboyant drama student that also means he’s gay and/or comfortable with that part of himself…He does seem to be one of the only people who knows Feuilly is agender though…

Ugh. His brain has been like this the whole car ride to the cottage, just endless circles and over-analyzation. He hasn’t even gotten to stressing about writing or going to Courfeyrac’s place, though maybe he’s just saving those spirals for the specific un-sleepable hours of night (read: obscenely early morning) when everything aches.

And now finally, mercifully, Pop is pulling up beside the cottage porch. Jehan’s grandma is waiting for the three of them under the plant pots she’s hung from the porch lattice. The pots are empty now, but Jehan’s heart warms at the sight, and he doesn’t feel like he’s on the edge of being pulled into the undertow of his thoughts anymore.

Jehan casts a beam at Grantaire, who smiles back a little nervously, and they hop out of the truck. Jehan leaps up the front steps and then he’s hugging Nan tightly. The Coufeyrac-Feuilly spirals and the thoughts of impending late-night panic recede even further.

“Ah, so that’s what I’ve been missing these last two months,” Jehan’s grandma whispers into his ear.

Jehan breathes in the scent of the kitchen on her and feels the open breeze blow through the braids in his hair.

“I’ve missed you too, Nan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, here we go! Chapter five is up, yay! It's actually shorter than I had feared when I posted Chapter Four, and that's because I finally figured out the best place to end it.
> 
> I really like where Chapter Six has gone so far. If only I could get the end of it finished in a way I like...
> 
> Comments always appreciated!


	6. ...Then Another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Since when do you offer to do dishes?” Jehan whispers to Grantaire as he’s wiping off the table. “I’ve seen your kitchen, dude.”
> 
> “Shut up, I’m trying to make a good impression!” Grantaire hisses back. That makes Jehan more happy than he cares to admit. Neither of them can stop from giggling under their breath as they work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just pretend that   
> a) fireflies can show up in the middle of October  
> and  
> b) the Amis, besides R and Jehan, don't have weird French names.
> 
> Slight Warning: Convos about the death of a relative and shitty divorced parents.

“Mrs. Prouvaire, that was absolutely delicious!”

Nan beams. “This is just the warmup for tomorrow, but I’m so pleased you like it. Jehan never eats enough of my cooking!”

“Nan, R’s got almost a foot on me, he needs more food to sustain his larger body mass.”

While Grantaire is Epically Glaring at Jehan over his comment, Nan leans back in her chair and gives him an appraising look. “What does R mean?”

“Just a silly nick-name,” Grantaire says. “Don’t think my parents had French in mind when they named me, but my name sounds like the French words for capital R and so,” he spreads his hands, “yeah. If that’s not an indication of how they raised me…” This last bit is said under his breath, so Jehan thinks he’s the only one at the table who catches the comment.

“Jean is a common French name, but it’s been in Jehan’s grandfather’s family for generations, since before they immigrated during the Fur Trade, so that’s what Ruby decided to call him.”

Jehan can feel Grantaire’s wide eyes turning to look at him. “Your name is Jean? Not _Jehan_?”

Jehan nods.

“But,” Grantaire’s face scrunches in confusion, “they sound so similar? What does it matter?”

Jehan’s grandma crows and wiggles her arms. “Oh, tell him, darling, it’s too funny.”

Jehan blushes and picks at the remains of his food. Welcome home, he thinks, and beats back the burgeoning smile.

Grantaire looks back and forth between Jehan and his grandparents. “Is there some dark secret I don’t know?” he asks.

“No, no,” Pop waves him away. “Jehan just thinks…”

“Jean is just too boring, ok?” Jehan bursts out. “Not romantic at all. _Everyone’s_ name is Jean or some other variation of John!” The table dissolves into laughter at his outrage. Jehan spends a decent amount of time valiantly trying to defend his point, but in the end even he can’t get words out through the giggles.

“I just like it better, I guess,” he finishes weakly, swiping at his running eyes.

“Jean Prouvaire. Jehan Prouvaire.” Grantaire rolls the names around in his mouth. “Ok, ok, I can see your point.”

Jehan raises his face to the Heavens. “Thank you!”

Nan and Pop begin to stand; Grantaire tries to rise with them.

“Mrs. Prouvaire, please let me at least help with the dishes!”

“Absolutely not, Grantaire! You boys have had a long day,” Jehan tries to protest, even though he knows it’s a lost cause, but Nan cuts him off before he even gets a word in, “and I don’t have any homework or school to go back to on Monday. And please, Grantaire,” she calls as she’s taking the dinner dishes to the sink, “call me Nan!”

They at least help her put the food away and clear all the dishes, despite her tsking.

“Since when do you offer to do dishes?” Jehan whispers to Grantaire as he’s wiping off the table. “I’ve seen your kitchen, dude.”

“Shut up, I’m trying to make a good impression!” Grantaire hisses back. That makes Jehan more happy than he cares to admit. Neither of them can stop from giggling under their breath as they work.

Nan does finally succeed in shoeing them away, waving her arms like she’s herding the chickens or something.

“Ok, ok, we’re going Nan, jeez!”

Jehan’s grandpa is in the living room already, reading some detective novel, so Jehan and Grantaire decide to sit on the back porch to give him a bit of peace and quiet.

“Your grandma is a force to be reckoned with,” Grantaire says, once they’re sure the grandparents can’t hear them.

She really is. She’s not much taller than Jehan, definitely shorter than Grantaire, but Nan is a hard woman to ignore. She always looks you dead in the eyes – Jehan couldn’t ever hide anything from her seemingly all-knowing stare (not for lack of trying!) Her energy has continued to be boundless even as Jehan has grown up.

“Oh yeah. Pop and I would be lost without her.” Jehan gazes out across the back end of the farm property. There’s not much to be seen now under the early-evening-October-sky gloom, just the silhouettes of pines at the edge of the creek that borders the farm. They can hear the clinking of dishes and humming as Nan tidies up; she’s singing an Aerosmith song, which makes Grantaire shake his head and smile.

“She’s pretty good,” he whispers, and then falls silent again. It’s easy to lapse into silence out here. It’s easy to be silent around Grantaire and not worry about what he might be thinking.

Early on when they were getting to know each other, Jehan noticed a huge difference in the way Grantaire talks to people publicly. He is loud and large with them, quick with a joke or a jab, depending on how well he knows you – Jehan can always tell when Grantaire likes people because he’s unafraid to interrupt their stories with biting one-liners. Like he is with Courfeyrac and Feuilly and Bahorel, the Amis he knew before joining the club, and like he’s growing to be with Joly and Bossuet. He never talks to people just for the sake of talking though, which might surprise you if you’ve seen him hanging out with his buddies. All the same, when Jehan admitted he spent whole days without talking to people at school, Grantaire said he did too (and he is not the call-home-every-night kind of guy, lack of Thanksgiving celebrations not-withstanding.)

Jehan knows now, because he just might be the person who knows Grantaire the best at school, that Grantaire feels pressured when there’s silence. He rushes to fill its void when there are other people around, even with Feuilly or Bahorel. He is different only with Jehan.

Grantaire’d come over one Thursday night - before they’d joined the Amis - absolutely exhausted. He hadn’t said much, just laid on the floor while Jehan worked on a Lit Analysis paper. Jehan had apologized for the lack of conversation, explained he just needed to get this assignment done, and Grantaire had said: I don’t mind, the silence doesn’t feel heavy when it’s with you.

_The silence doesn’t feel heavy when it’s with you._

He’d fallen asleep right after he said that, there on Jehan’s shitty apartment carpet. Jehan had then surprised him with one of the fancier meals he knew how to make for dinner. They never talked about what Grantaire said before he fell asleep that night, not even as he thanked Jehan so much for the food that Jehan considered whether he might be better off switching to culinary school (it was about a week later Jehan learned Grantaire’s cooking skills amounted to frozen things and pasta, so. A skewed review if there ever was one.) They haven’t talked about it since.

Jehan hasn’t forgotten what he said though. He’s jealous Grantaire effortlessly came up with a line like that just in spoken conversation, and he wonders sometimes if Grantaire remembers he even said it. Would he be embarrassed to have expressed something like that? Jehan wrote it down on the inside cover of his notebook so he won’t ever forget.

“Are you still thinking about Courfeyrac and Feuilly?”

“What?” Jehan turns his face to see Grantaire raising his singularly-defined Question-Asking eyebrow.

“Courfeyrac and Feuilly. You thinking about them now like you were in the car?”

“How did you…?” Jehan closes his mouth, shakes his head. “No, actually. I was thinking that I like that I can sit in silence with you.”

It’s Grantaire’s turn to shake his head. “And I ruined it by opening my big mouth.”

Jehan hits him lightly on the shoulder. “Nah.” He hesitates to dive into the craziness that is his thoughts about Feuilly and Courfeyrac – opening up about that feels like a sure way to ride the whirlpool down to it’s epicenter. But. Talking about it might help…?

Jehan sighs. “I just go ‘round and ‘round in circles when I think about them,”

“ – that’s because your half-baked theory isn’t based on anything…”

“- but I can’t seem to stop myself!” Jehan winces; that last bit was distinctly ‘little kid whining about something’.

“Could you just - ” Grantaire pauses.

“Could I just…?”

“…ask…them? About their feelings?”

Jehan curbs the impulse to shout and run away, if only barely. He knows Grantaire _knows_ what a terrifying thing that is to ask, so he tries to entertain the idea as much as he can.

“Maybe when I know them both a little better?” he offers. It’s such a feeble excuse for a concession, but Grantaire nods thoughtfully.

“Then that’s all I got for you tonight, man.”

It’s an unseasonably warm night for mid-October. Out of the blackness, one, two, then three fireflies flicker into view. Grantaire freezes when he notices them.

“I’ve never seen fireflies before.” His eyes are shining.

Jehan smiles, remembering many a failed trip out into the nighttime-drenched fields with Pop to try and catch a few. “I’m surprised there are any this late into autumn!” Then, he proclaims to the night: “Just call me Jehan, show-er of Alberta fireflies in all their limited glory.”

“What about _Jean_ , show-er of Alberta fireflies in all their limited glory?”

Jehan jabs his fingers into Grantaire’s side, a welcome torturing trick he learned from his older cousins. It’s been a long time since Jehan has tasered anyone, but since that Saturday movie night with the cuddles, both friends have been a lot more comfortable being physical with each other.

Grantaire yelps, leaping out of taser range.

“Ok, ok, I yield!!!! I deserved that.”

They watch the fireflies in the evening silence for another few minutes.

Jehan gulps, then asks, because he’s curious and it’s on his mind and he wants to be honest, “What did Enjolras say to you today, before he came over to plan the newspaper thing?”

Grantaire doesn’t blush at the mention of the blonde leader this time, but his fingers start tapping a complicated dance across his knees.

“He told me he was surprised and glad that I’d managed to actually think of something to do for Feuilly instead of just critiquing the other ideas put forward.”

Jehan just looks at Grantaire. That doesn’t seem like very high praise… _Now_ Grantaire blushes.

He clears his throat. “He, uh. He said it a lot nicer than. That. He thanked me for working on it with ‘Ponine, for bringing it in today.” He ducks his head, but Jehan can tell he’s smiling. His fingers have settled into a more normal tapping routine.

Grantaire murmurs, “I really want to help Feuilly take this thing in front of the School Board. I think this newspaper/website idea is a step in the right direction.”

Jehan tramps down the inner voices that clamor about _what the fuck he thinks he’s going to write_. This is my weekend to relax, he screams at them, and they subside for the time being. Jehan is sure Grantaire’s face highlighted in the firefly-glow helps quiet their ruckus.

“I do too.” He scoots in closer, raises his hands in a show of peace so Grantaire knows he means no harm, and lays his head on Grantaire’s shoulder.

“I really am proud of you, R.”

Grantaire leans his head on top of Jehan’s. “You know, I’m a little proud of me too.”

* * *

Jehan wakes up from his nap the next morning to the voices of Grantaire, his grandma, and his grandpa wafting in from the kitchen.

He, Grantaire, and Pop were up at around 7 (with the sun) to get a tour of the farm. Jehan and Grantaire didn’t get to sleep until 3 in the morning – too busy trading stories about their childhoods, fuelled by nostalgia as only a trip to someone’s home can let one be – so they were pretty wiped. Jehan was asleep on his feet by the time they finished the hearty breakfast Nan had waiting for them when they came in. Pop suggested Jehan go take a quick nap ‘cause they were getting back to school late that night, and Jehan had actually fallen asleep (despite the fact that he felt unaccountably guilty for leaving his guest alone with his grandparents and his grandparents alone with his guest; clearly he needed to rest!)

As the sleep fog starts to clear from Jehan’s mind, he takes a moment to savour the sounds of the floating, quiet voices.

Then, what the voices are saying registers.

“This late Thanksgiving tradition is so smart,” that’s Grantaire, for sure. “Good way to keep the celebration between the three of you and focus on what matters.”

“Why, thank you Grantaire. I’m awfully fond of it too. We used to have the big celebrations in the main house, when Jehan was very, very little…”

Jehan starts. He had forgotten that used to be the way of things, but as soon as Nan mentions it he can feel the sanded hardwood on his hands as he played with his grandma’s fabrics on the floor, he can smell something cinnamon-y cooking…

“That was back when my daughter was around to help with the hosting and the preparations, back when she and Jehan first moved in with us.”

Jehan blinks away those snapshots of memory. He is listening intently, with bated breath, to what Grantaire will say in response. Jehan’s only told Grantaire the bare minimum of what he knows about his mom, not so much from the point of hiding it, but just because Jehan doesn’t know much himself. There is a great deal of surprise rising within him that Nan would bring up Jehan’s mom, especially to a new guest – she’s never talked about her daughter with Jehan. As the surprise ebbs and Grantaire begins to respond, Jehan wonders if that’s because he’s never asked her. He’s never needed to; who else did he need but his Nan and his Pop?

“If you don’t mind my asking, Mrs.…uh,” Grantaire pauses, maybe for breath, “sorry, _Nan_ , what exactly happened to Jehan’s mom? He doesn’t talk about her.”

“He never really has talked about her though, has he, Joy?” Jehan had forgotten Pop was in the kitchen as well.

“No, not really. He was so young though, I expect he doesn’t remember her much.”

“If I’m over-stepping,” Jehan can hear the catch in Grantaire’s voice from his room,

“It’s perfectly alright, Grantaire. We don’t much get the chance to talk about Ruby with anyone; Jehan never seemed to want to hear about it. But now it brings more happy remembrance than sadness.

Ruby was so young when she had Jeahn, I think she was just in her second year at school,”

“She wanted to go into medicine,” Pop interrupts. “We used to call her for help back when we raised cattle here, and somehow she always knew what was wrong, just from listening to me complain over the phone. Thought she would have been great with humans too! She used to use markers to ‘injure’ her Barbies just so she could patch ‘em up again!”

“She sounds like someone who would join our social-justice club,” Grantaire says, and Jehan is hit by so many different kinds of warmth at once – the cozy sincerity in R’s voice, the toasty knowledge that his mom _does_ sound like some of the medically-inclined members of the Amis, the snug and effortless way Grantaire called it _their_ club…He doesn’t quite know what to do with all of it.

Pop chuckles. “Oh, she would have been all over that stuff.”

“She called us and told us right away when she found out she was pregnant, but Jehan wasn’t due until April so she wanted to finish as much of her semester as she could,” Nan continues. “The plan was to do as much as she could, have the baby, and then take the summer to spend time and catch up on what she needed to. She never told us who the father was, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t want him involved in raising Jehan.”

Jehan hears the sounds of drawers opening (it’s the utensil drawer ‘cause that one always squeaks) and then hears the sharp starts of his grandpa’s chopping. Must be having cucumber sandwiches for lunch.

“I take it things didn’t go according to her plan?” Grantaire asks.

“No,” Nan answers. “Jehan was premature, and there were a bunch of complications that went along with Ruby’s labour. It took them both awhile to come home from the hospital, which was really hard for her, all that laying around with nothing to do.”

“The first few months when she came home with that tiny boy were when we started the plans to build this cottage.” The chopping pauses, but Pop continues talking. “He was tiny but my God did he scream!” Grantaire snickers, and Jehan feels his ears heat.

“Anyway, Ruby didn’t go back to school, and she was so tired for so long after the birth. It was really hard on her. I insisted she rest more, she always had these awful headaches, but she wanted to push through for Jehan’s sake. He was so tiny and needed to be fed so often and she was so tired…” Jehan catches the hint of a sniffle in his grandma’s voice, “but you should have seen her face when she saw her son! She loved him so very much.”

I begged her to go to the hospital when the fainting spells started, but she would hear none of that. She insisted on being with Jehan as much as she could, though we would have been happy to take him and let her rest for a bit. Her feet were so swollen at times I didn’t know how she walked on them.”

Jehan feels the weight of Grantaire’s silence from where he is sat in his old bedroom. He wonders what his friend is picturing as his grandparents tell this story. Jehan looks at his long fingers, trying to imagine his hand as it might have looked when it belonged to the tiny baby in his grandparents’ words. Maybe it was a baby hand that his mother played patty cake with. He fails though; it just looks like the same hand it’s always been.

Pop picks up the tale, his voice traveling from the fridge to the counter as he grabs more fixings for lunch. “She collapsed one day on the back porch having her afternoon tea. We were told later it was heart failure, cardiomyop-something.”

“Cardiomyopathy,” Nan says. “They think her heart was weakened during the labour, but we don’t really know because she didn’t let any of us in on how bad she was feeling. Thank God she was actually letting me change Jehan for once, I can’t imagine what would have happened to him if she’d been holding him when she collapsed.”

“I’m so sorry,” Grantaire murmurs. “I know that’s such a lame condolence, and I know it’s eighteen years late…”

“Grantaire, don’t fuss! We appreciate your words,” Nan chides.

The kitchen is silent; Jehan expects Grantaire is trying to take in what Nan said and not beat himself up for asking about Jehan’s mom in the first place.

“Well, props to you guys, I have to say,” he finally whispers. “It can’t have been easy, loosing your daughter and having a one-year-old to look after all at once.”

Jehan hears Pop give a long, breathy sigh. “Well, no, it wasn’t easy, but Jehan was and has always been such a comfort to us. He was a huge solace, ‘specially in those early days. You move through your feelin’s as best you can when there’s this little human who needs all your attention.”

“We were so lucky he was comfortable with us and knew who we were – he was inconsolable for weeks because he missed Ruby so much.”

“And it wasn’t like he would understand any explanations you gave him,” Grantaire says.

Jehan sits and sits there on his childhood bed. He can hear the conversation carrying on, moving to less eventful subjects, but he’s no longer listening. He keeps trying to reckon with his grandma’s words – it has never before occurred to Jehan that he would have missed his mom in the early days after her death.

From the time he could understand words and concepts like that, he knew why she wasn’t here and why his guardians were so much older than everyone else’s, and none of it had ever bothered him. How do you quantify an absence like that? How does the missing measure up if you know you’re missing some of what society deems as standard, but you never _really_ knew it, so you don’t know any different?

He’s struggling to digest the overwhelming thought that maybe he should have paid the woman who birthed him more mind; she is responsible for his existence, after all. For the love of God, Grantaire now knows as much about Jehan’s mom as Jehan himself ever has!

She was her own person, no older than Jehan is now. She was somebody his grandparents _also_ raised. She was somebody a smaller Jehan missed for weeks and weeks on end! And he’s never thought about her more than in memorial passing, on birthdays and Mother’s Day and the anniversary of the day she died.

For all of Jehan’s yearnings for things beyond his control and things he can’t have, knowing his dead mother has never been one of them. He’s thinking now, with rising shame, that it really should have been.

_You yearn for times and poets long past, yet you’ve never yearned to speak with your own mother?_

Well, from now on, he will change that!

He lies back onto his bed, closes his eyes, and tries to sift through his mind clutter to figure out just what exactly he would say to his mom if he could.

‘Thank you for this life you gave me’ would be a good start, Jehan thinks. ‘Thank you for loving me fiercely, even though I never appreciated it before now.’

The first person he’d tell his mom about is Grantaire (well, after assuring her of how well looked-after and loved he has been by his grandparents, of course.) But _after_ she knew how lucky Jehan was to have her parents in his life, if he could, he would tell her about Grantaire. Grantaire, who cares enough about Jehan to needle him about his Courfeyrac-related idiocy, who has been nothing but kind and gentle with Nan and Pop even if those are never the first words he uses to describe himself. Grantaire, who is shout-singing to Bon Jovi with Pop right now in the kitchen.

Above the guilt that brought this thought process on, Jehan is suddenly filled by the wish to have his mother here, solely so he could introduce her to Grantaire like he has his grandparents. This weekend has been an extreme coalescence of the love in Jehan’s life, and all of a sudden he so so so fervently wishes he could share it with the brave woman who brought him into the world.

He supposes, because he is now thinking of her and wishing she were here as he never has before, in a way, he _has_ shared this time with his mom.

When he goes out to join his family for lunch, Jehan carefully taps both the high school graduation photos his grandparents have up. His photo on the right gets one tap, and his mom’s on the left gets two; he has to start making up for lost time!

* * *

“Dinner time!”

The call rings out from the kitchen, Jehan and Grantaire hop off the couch eagerly. Out first pops Pop’s head, then his body. He is bearing a beautiful turkey.

“I hope you boys are hungry,” he warns as he places the bird on the table. “Because we’ve gone all out for you, per Joy’s instructions.”

Grantaire’s eyes continue to widen as Nan and Pop make multiple trips to bring the dishes out. There’s the turkey, of course, bursting with one kind of stuffing. There is a medium-sized bowl with another kind of stuffing because Jehan and Pop have different favourites. There are carrots and corn-flake potatoes and fresh gravy and biscuits. There is also a yam casserole.

“And what Thanksgiving celebration would be complete,” Nan declares with a flourish, “without my famous cranberry sauce!”

Jehan is worried Grantaire’s eyes will pop out of their sockets, which though an entertaining prospect for an art piece, is not something he wants to deal with right now.

Grantaire whispers in awe, “Jehan, my dude. You live like a king!”

“Well, dig in!” Nan scolds. “Dig in, dig in, dig in!!!”

“So, Grantaire,” Nan says, after several minutes filled with only the sounds of enthusiastic chewing, “Jehan said you’re an art student. Has he shown you any of his old paintings?”

Jehan’s heart takes an Olympic dive into his stomach.

“Nooo,” says Grantaire, as he turns to slowly look at Jehan, “he did _not_.” His Eyebrow of Extreme Interest goes all the way up – it almost reaches his hairline.

Jehan tries his best to avert this impending disaster: “Oh, wellllllllll… Pop will want to get on the road pretty soon after dessert though, we don’t want to get into town too late. Maybe there’ll be time next time you’re here, Grantaire…”

The Fates do not look kindly on his struggles.

Nan interjects with a smooth smile, “Oh but Jehan, they’re such lovely paintings! The Peter Pan ones are my favourite!”

“What,” Grantaire asks, biting out the T on the end of the word in a way that would have made Jehan laugh were this a normal day, “ _Peter Pan paintings_?”

Jehan gives up and decides the best course of action is just to continue eating the scrumptious food and pretend like his life is not turning out the way it is.

“He has all these old watercolour paintings of the characters from Peter Pan, except for Wendy. He always used to paint himself in Wendy’s place.”

“What?!?” Grantaire all but roars, at the same time that Jehan wails, “Nan, I thought we said we would never bring those paintings up again!”

Grantaire is cackling. Jehan’s hands are hiding his burning face.

“You should really ask to look at them, Grantaire, they span a lot of years and the improvement in the ability is _real grea_ t to see.” That’s Pop; the measured way he has phrased this sentence only confirms for Jehan that they’re all laughing at him.

“I have to see these,” Grantaire declares.

_Can this get any worse?_

He hears chair-scraping sounds and then Nan’s voice coming from a different part of the house: “You’re in luck, Grantaire. I’ve kept my favourite of Jehan’s paintings in the main bedroom and I pulled it out before dinner!”

Jehan is forced to lift his head from his hands in utter horror. He can only watch as Nan reveals the painting in question from behind her back with a flourish.

_Yes. Yes it can, it can get SO MUCH worse_.

The painting in question features only two subjects – Peter Pan, as he is described in the _Peter and the Starcatchers_ series, and a pre-teen Jehan (his hair only reaches his shoulders.) The two boys are flying beside each other towards something in the distance, Neverland, most likely. Jehan’s face in the painting is turned mostly away from the viewer, but it is clear he is looking at Peter.

What’s the most obvious is that the boys are holding hands.

Grantaire lets out an inhuman screech and dives across the table to get a closer look. Jehan isn’t even pretending to continue eating anymore; his hands are gripping the edges of his seat like maybe a death grip on some home-made seat cushions is the ticket out of this godforsaken mess.

“Isn’t it lovely?” Nan asks. “I think he did this one when he was about fourteen.”

“Nan!”

“What? Why can’t I share my appreciation for your art with everyone? I like it, I think it’s quite good, and there’s no shame in drawing whatever you want!”

The worst part is, Jehan knows she’s right. He knows she really loves his paintings and his creativity, not just from a biased perspective, but from a proud one, from a ‘I like the colours he used and the angle he painted from’ perspective.

No, scratch that, the worst part is that she’s doing this in front of Grantaire, someone Jehan wouldn’t mind sharing awkward preteen fandom things with, except that he is an Actual! Art! Student! With actual art talent and training and eye. Not to mention, Peter Pan as a character is something very near and dear to Jehan’s heart. Peter Pan is the character Jehan first fell in love with, and he hasn’t really let go of him since. He values Grantaire’s opinions, but he’s not sure he’s ready to hear Grantaire tease him about this or, even worse, admit to not liking Peter Pan.

Grantaire is still looking at Jehan’s painting.

“Dude,” he whispers. “You did this when you were fourteen?”

“Uh, yeah? I think so.”

“I really like the angle you have them at. It makes it feel like we’re flying along with them, instead of just watching them.”

Jehan puffs some breaths of air through his cheeks. “Thank. You?” He was Very Much Not expecting this reaction, but he watches as Grantaire thoroughly examines Jehan’s fanart from somewhere around 2015 with the attention-to-detail he reserves for his own art projects. Jehan thinks then that maybe this reveal isn’t the dreaded final straw of embarrasment that pushes Grantaire away from him that he thought it was. Maybe, he thinks, just _maybe_ , he was a little overdramatic in his reactions.

Grantaire slaps at Jehan’s arm. “Jehan, dude. This is really good!”

“For self-insert Peter Pan fanart?” Jehan tries.

“No, for anything!” Jehan blanches and Grantaire rushes to defend his statement. “I mean, you have them flying at like, a side angle and their proportions don’t look weird! Their hands are normal hands! Hands are hard for everyone at fourteen!”

“I spent three weeks on those hands,” Jehan mumbles.

“Exactly! But the work is good, man, even if it’s just a preteen passion project to you now.”

“See, Jehan,” Pop says in a mock serious but also ‘I told you so’ voice, “this young man you brought home is clearly a man of great taste and refinement.”

At that, giggles start bubbling up inside Jehan – they fizz like pop rocks as they travel up his throat – and suddenly he is crying with laughter. Pop is surprised by this reaction.

“What are you laughing at?”

“I dunno,” Jehan gasps out, “at the voice you used, and because of the way you phrased my ‘bringing Grantaire home’ and because he,” he hiccups, “is so far from re, refined!”

“Hey, I’m not the one spending my preteen years drawing myself and Peter Pan holding hands!”

Now they’re all doubled over and howling, all four of them. The table shakes with the force of the impact from all sides.

“Maybe now you can convince Jehan to show you some of his earlier paintings,” Nan prompts when they have calmed enough to begin eating again.

Jehan groans, mostly teasing now, “Weren’t all the pictures of six-year-old me dressed up as Anastasia enough?” (Yesterday before dinner, Nan had gotten out all the old photo albums full of Jehan’s childhood, complete with the princess years and the trying-way-too-hard-to-be-edgy years and the awkward growing-out-his-hair years.)

Grantaire chugs some of his water, then holds up an imperious finger. “Ok, but 1) you are adorable in those photos, Jehan, and 2), I used to have an actual Padawan braid in my hair like Anakin’s in the prequels, so who really looses this game of Thanksgiving embarrassment?”

Jehan is forced to concede this is a fair point, but only after Grantaire shares a photo of said Padawan braid around the table.

Pop then asks, “So, Grantaire, what does your family do for Thanskgiving?” Jehan watches the immediate change in the air around Grantaire; his friend sets his fork down with a soft twang and fiddles with the edge of the tablecloth.

“Oh, um, we’re not big on…” He looks up at the expectant faces. Nan and Pop just want to hear more about Grantaire’s life, and Jehan just wants the same – he has heard Grantaire mention his mom a grand total of once.

Grantaire sets his mouth in a flat line, at which moment Jehan realizes his friend is going to answer and not just deflect. His face has that open-ness once again that is both so surprising and endearing when it occurs.

He clears his throat and says, “My parents are separated and um, Thanksgiving wasn’t super big before they were? But after, it became this ThingTM, this big scramble to ‘invent new traditions’ or whatever. I think they thought Thanksgiving was a less traumatic thing to fight over than Christmas, like that was big with them before either.” He shrugs, starts eating again (he’s on his second helping of yam casserole; Jehan thinks this is the largest amount of vegetables he’s seen R eat.)

Nan and Pop don’t seem to know what to make of this.

“Yeah, so, they fight about who gets what times on Thanksgiving,” Grantaire continues after a few more bites, “and they’re always trying to outdo each other with the celebrations. It sucks but,” another shrug, he moves to grab another piece of turkey, “now that I’m in school I get to choose when I go home and I just said ‘thanks but no thanks’ to both of them. Don’t wanna be in the middle of that more than I have to be anymore.”

The table is quiet for a few moments. Nan reaches across to grasp Grantaire’s hand for a second.

“Well, it’s been lovely to have you here with us, Grantaire. You’re welcome back anytime.”

“Their loss for the holidays is clearly our gain,” Pop says. He pats Grantaire firmly on the back as he grabs plates to take to the kitchen – R sits up straight at the touch. Something crosses over his face, some complex emotion that makes him look very young and very small all of the sudden. It’s quite the contrast from the way he usually appears to Jehan.

“Thank you for having me,” he says, and Jehan can see those words come from the bottom of Grantaire’s heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally ended it in a way I like!
> 
> I wrote the firefly scene without considering my timeline at all, and then went back and realized it was low-key impossible. I really tried to delete it, but I like it too much (adds more magic, IDK) so. Suspension of disbelief, whoo!
> 
> School has started in earnest so updates will likely be less common but I have...at least half of a plan and will to write. I will do my best!
> 
> Comments will always be appreciated; they're good motivation ;)


	7. Of Early Birds and the Effect They Have on Worms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jehan has been standing on this porch for at least the last five minutes. Well, he got here five minutes early so he could ring the bell exactly at 4:30 or 4:32 if he didn’t want to come off as being perfectly on time, so it’s been more like ten minutes. Both options are shot to Hell now anyway, because it is coming up on 4:36 and he still hasn’t rung the doorbell!

_Just ring the bell, Jehan. Surely you can do that much!_

He clutches at the notebook that has his third draft of what he wants to feature in the paper (after this approval meeting, he’ll type it up and send it to Combeferre) but makes no further move forward.

_You’re the worst kind of coward, Jehan Prouvaire._

Jehan is standing on the front porch of Courfeyrac’s house. It’s quite large, with three stories above ground – surely that can’t be all Courf’s space? The neighbourhood is nice for a university neighbourhood. There are plant pots by the door that have inhabitants during the proper seasons, Jehan is sure.

Jehan has been standing on this porch for at least the last five minutes. Well, he got here five minutes early so he could ring the bell exactly at 4:30 or 4:32 if he didn’t want to come off as being perfectly on time, so it’s been more like ten minutes. Both options are shot to Hell now anyway, because it is coming up on 4:3 _6_ and he still hasn’t rung the doorbell!

_DoitdoitdoitdoitNOW come on. You’re freezing, just ring the doorbell!_

As if to punctuate this thought, another brisk gust of wind blows at his back, going right through Jehan’s Halloween sweater and chilling some of the panic in his heart. He finally rings the doorbell then, thinking to himself that it might take Courfeyrac a few minutes to get down here, so there is really nothing to panic about, yet.

Courfeyrac takes _no time_ at all to open the door, which means he is there opening it long before Jehan is prepared for him. Jehan is in fact _un_ prepared to see him, unprepared to see hair fully undone and a tight hoodie and fuzzy socks, unprepared for the lazy welcome-ness that is Courfeyrac at home.

“Come in, come in, you’re letting in the cold air!” Jehan rushes inside, holding his notebook out in front for protection. He follows Courf, who says that people live on the main floor and the floor above his, up one flight of stairs. The door in the stairwell he opens is covered in old-timey Halloween costume adverts; Jehan loves it so much he manages to pay a compliment and ask if he can take a picture. These are the longest phrases he’s strung together since saying hello.

“Welcome, Jehan, to my humble abode!” Courfeyrac gestures to the space grandly, and Jehan imagines the daylight streaming in through the windows literally brightens under Courfeyrac’s kinetic gaze. “Set your stuff down anywhere; no one else is here, so you won’t need it for a while yet. Why don’t I give you the grand tour? Can I get you anything?”

Jehan has just been complying silently with the commands, but questions require verbal responses. “A tour would be great, thanks, um, and um. I’m good for now.” The good news is that speech is getting easier; maybe by the end of this meeting, Jehan’ll be able to look Courfeyrac in the eye!

Mentally, he’s chastising himself for what is definitely a major set-back in _not_ loosing his mind around Courfeyrac. Jehan wishes he could treat this space just the same as he does the Musain, but he really can’t because it is Courfeyrac’s Own Space, and therefore all the ease he’s built up around Courfeyrac at the meetings is no help to him here. He doesn’t think it would be a help to him even if he wasn’t majorly pining for the drama student – first times over at peoples’ homes are big deals!

“Did you find the place ok?” Courfeyrac is asking.

“Oh, yeah. It’s not too far from R’s.”

Jehan falls silent after that, but he did get almost another two full sentences out. Courfeyrac shows him the living room and the kitchen. The living room has no couches or proper chairs, but the floor is littered with bean bag chairs of all shapes and sizes.

“This is a collection of mine that spans decades and features contributions from almost every member of the Amis,” Courf declares proudly. Suddenly, he turns his sparkling eyes right at Jehan; it takes everything in him to keep his footing at the sudden directness of Courf’s gaze. “Wait! Do you have a bean bag chair?”

“Sorry,” Jehan gulps. “I don’t.”

Courfeyrac shrugs. “Moving on then!”

All that’s left to show is the bathroom and a narrow hallway with bedrooms on either side. The bathroom is small, but the bedroom has the most floor space Jehan’s seen in a fellow student’s place. And the floor is hardwood, not dingy carpet like his and Grantaire’s places. He is so busy admiring the space and the light, slightly jealously, that he doesn’t immediately freak out about being in Courfeyrac’s bedroom. Courf must register the moment Jehan remembers exactly where he is though: his head jerks up and around so fast his neck cracks.

“You can sit down if you want,” Courfeyrac says. Some of his energy seems to have dropped away, maybe in the face of Jehan’s remembered nervousness. Jehan lowers himself into the desk chair, at what feels like a painfully slow speed. He’s expecting Courfeyrac to get comfy on his bed, but he sits criss-cross applesauce on the floor right in front of Jehan, which is a relief because it means Jehan doesn’t have to look at Courfeyrac’s bed (the sheets have narwhals on them, that’s all Jehan saw before he tore his eyes away.)

“Hope you don’t mind if we chill in here while we wait for everyone else to arrive.” Jehan shakes his head and is rewarded with a toothy grin. “Good, ‘cause I have this weird thing about showing people my room the first time they come over to my place, it’s like a point of pride or something.”

Jehan kicks his feet up in front of him so he doesn’t have to make prolonged eye contact. “Guess you never grew out of that ‘amaze-your-new-friends-with-all-your-shit phase everyone goes through.”

Courfeyrac is still grinning. “Guess not.” The silence that follows is finally starting to reach comfortable levels.

Ok, Jehan thinks. Ok. I can do this!

“How was your weekend? Grantaire went home with you right?”

“He did! He met my grandparents and was actually quite the charmer. Didn’t know he had that in him.”

Coufreyrac waves his hand dismissively. “Anyone can be a charmer when they want to be, Grantaire’s no exception.”

“Well my grandparents loved him,” Jehan says. “My grandma is now sending his Rebel Kitchen coffees direct and won’t let him pay for them anymore!”

“Did you just really want to visit your grandparents?” Courfeyrac asks. He leans in with a gleam in his eyes, “Or did you think Grantaire would fit in better with the older folks?”

Alongside R’s surprising charming side, he grew up with a love for what some people may refer to as old-people habits; he’s trying to teach Jehan to embroider while Jehan is on his ‘introduce Grantaire to board games’ campaign.

Jehan shrugs and shakes his head. “No I, uh, grew up with my grandparents.”

“Oh, cool.”

He nods, once, twice, weighs the feelings present in his chest, and decides to just barrel on through: “My mom died when I was one, heart failure…some complications left over from labour they think.” It’s one of the rare instances in Jehan’s life where saying that out loud doesn’t feel like grasping for some sorrow and/or sympathy he doesn’t feel entitled to. It’s one of the few times he isn’t worried about what the other person will say. In the bright hardwood of Courfeyrac’s large room, Jehan feels free to be open with his friend, and feels like maybe he’s off to a decent start to acknowledging the absence of his mom.

“That can’t have been easy. I’m sorry.” Jehan nods again. He feels like the kind words deserve more acknowledgement than that, so he steals himself and manages to look Courfeyrac in his lovely eyes. He struggles not to loose himself in their depths. It is a struggle Jehan is bound to fail, but he’s not so sorry for that right now. Floundering for speech as he is, he wishes a person could convey things clearly without using words, for all Jehan’s worship of them. How handy that would be at times like this, when he feels like his voice is stuck somewhere between his vocal chords and his tongue.

“Thank you,” he finally says. “I guess it was, but I don’t remember her, so. And I def lucked out with my grandparents.”

“I’ll say! Anyone who raised such an epic person as you just has to be badass!”

Annnnnnnndddd…that is the precise moment the eye contact becomes too much for Jehan’s brain. He looks away furtively, trying to steady his breathing and keep his blush to a minimum.

In an attempt to avoid seeing what Courfeyrac’s facial expressions are doing (and over-analyzing them later to the detriment of his afternoon) Jehan casts his gaze around the room, still avoiding looking at the bed head-on. His eyes catch on a cork board over by the door, peppered with paper and push-pins. Normally, he’d curb his curious tendencies when in unfamiliar spaces – the first time Jehan was over at Grantaire’s apartment, he sat awkwardly beside R on the bed until Grantaire told him to “go and poke his nose into everything, because he knew Jehan wanted to anyway.” But Jehan is in desperate need of a conversation change, and quick, before his face combusts.

“What’s over here?”

Courfeyrac finally stops chuckling and follows Jehan across the room. “Oh that, uh, just scraps. Words, phrases I like, possible melodies and lyrics…ya know.”

Jehan feels his eyes roaming the words and papers. He knows, or at least, he feels, that he should really be asking Courf permission to look at this stuff – he could hear the hesitation in his friend’s voice, played off as casual. But the sheer variety of things is captivating! There are Taylor Swift lyrics and Walt Whitman poems beside Shakespeare quotes. There are more than a few of the lyric booklets they slip inside CDs pinned up as well: Jehan sees the Adam Lambert album he played on repeat, and what looks like five different versions of the musical _Pippin_. As he’s scanning, Jehan notices a piece of paper more covered than the rest and he begins to read. He doesn’t recognize it, but he really likes the first few lines. Before he knows it, he’s reading it out loud.

“I wish I knew how

to stem the tide

of all this misfortune

that seems to ride

above

each and every one of us.

And the power folks?

They say we’re…”

Jehan trails off, the end of the unfinished phrase still hovering on his tongue. Underneath and around the other words of the piece, Courf has written possible words to fill the blank spot. He has ‘trivial’ written a bunch of times, and ‘ridiculous’ and ‘innocuous’ and ‘peripheral’.

Jehan hums. “I really like this, Courf, but I see the dilemma you’ve created for yourself with the last phrase.”

Courfeyrac cocks his head, not unlike a puppy, and flashes Jehan some side eye and a crooked grin (it’s a miracle Jehan’s knees don’t give it on him then and there!) “Oh? And what’s my dilemma?”

“Well, you want it to rhyme with ‘us’, right?”

“Yeah, ideally.”

“All the words you have here that rhyme with ‘us’ have too many syllables. That’s why you’re unsure about them. I think you want something with three, that would fit the rhythm best.”

“I…’ve never thought of it that way!” Courf taps his chin with his pointer finger thoughtfully. He’s still looking at his sheet of paper as he speaks to Jehan. “I hadn’t even gotten to chords or a melody with this yet, the last word frustrated me so much. I usually don’t get into syllable-arranging until I’m working music,” he explains. And then it’s like he registers the full length of what Jehan first said. “But you like it?”

Coufeyrac looks at Jehan with such an eager, hopeful smile that Jehan is glad he _does_ like the piece. He’s certain he would tell any number of lies, of varying degrees of import, only to keep Courfeyrac looking at Jehan precisely the way he is right now. All the same, he’s glad he doesn’t have to lie about this, not when it clearly means so much to the writer.

“I do. It reads more like a poem than a song.”

Courfeyrac hums a pleased hum. They lapse into silence as they contine to stare at the cork board, both clearly intent on trying to solve this rhyme issue.

“What about ludicrous?” Jehan suddenly yelps.

“Yes!” Courf cries. He runs to grab a pen and finally fill this blank (Jehan can’t imagine how much a blank phrase like that would frustrate a songwriter) but before he finds one he deflates.

“It feels good and fits with the rhythm perfectly,” Courfeyrac says, returning from his brief search, “but do you hear people saying ludicrUS or ludicrIS more often?”

“Dammit!” Jehan smiles ruefully at him. “I really liked that one.” They fall silent again, thinking; Jehan starts to pace the small space between the desk and the cork board.

It feels like an eternity passes, an eternity lasting probably two minutes at most, and then Jehan gives them both a heart attack by screeching “FRIVOLOUS!”

They both know immediately this is the one. Courfeyrac leaps into action to write the word down. He scratches out all the other options too, even though some were written in pencil and were erasable. Courf then turns to Jehan, his eyes bright – it’s hard to look away from their magnetizing sparkle, and Courfeyrac’s lashes frame them in a way that is absolutely sinful. His eyes remind Jehan of a creature from folklore, he can’t remember which one right this second, but it’s definitely something that lures it’s victims in with it’s eyes…although Jehan is the definition of a willing vitctim if ever there was one…

“Jehan, my hero, you’ve done it!” Courfeyrac dashes towards him, arms outstretched. Is he going for a hug? This thought jolts Jehan so violently from his musings about Courfeyrac’s eyes that he flinches away without meaning to. Noticeably.

“Oh God. Right. Damn. Jehan, I’m sorry. I should have asked if you were comfortable…” Courf stops, shakes out his wrists, and starts shifting from foot to foot (Courfeyrac: always in motion.) “I’m sorry,” he continues, stumbling, “I just really like giving out hugs. ‘Specially celebratory ones…But! I completely understand if that’s not within your comfort zone.”

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

“No, um,” Jehan squeaks, “that’s ok! I am…ok…with casual hugs?”

Courfeyrac puffs out his cheeks and blows the air out slowly. This turns into a sort of wheezy chuckle and then he’s looking at Jehan again. Jehan can’t place in what way. Is it in the way Grantaire looks at him sometimes, that ‘I can’t believe you’re a real person’ look Jehan loves so much, or is he just trying way too hard to see what he wants to see?

Doesn’t matter. Courfeyrac mutters, “Well, ok then,” and then he’s crossing the distance between them in two strides and wrapping Jehan in his second Courfeyrac hug of his life.

I could get used to this, Jehan thinks, a little dizzily.

“Knock, knock!” A voice calls out. “I’m here a little early, Courf, hope that’s ok!”

_Early?_

Jehan and Courfeyrac step away from each other just quick enough to feel caught in the act when Combeferre steps through the bedroom door.

“Oh! Jehan, you’re here too, nice. Enj and Feuilly should be here soon-ish?” Combeferre is surprised to see Jehan, but he’s being nice about it. Jehan is surprised Combeferre thinks he’s early, but he’s trying not to panic about it.

Courfeyrac is looking distinctively sheepish, and Jehan is not projecting that this time.

“Jehan came over to help me with some lyric stuff,” he mumbles. “Thanks for that, man.”

Jehan nods very slowly. “…No problem.” It feels like a million alarm bells and whistles are going off in Jehan’s head. He keeps his wide-blown eyes fixated on Courfeyrac’s, carefully watching all his reactions in the hopes of maybe getting a fucking explanation for all this.

“Yeah, well since you’re here, Jehan…” Combeferre goes off in his own world, oblivious to the looks Courfeyrac and Jehan are exchanging. Courfeyrac is a deer caught in a trap, apologizing again with his folklore-like eyes, and Jehan is just straight up panicking.

_He told me to come at 4:30! I texted him what time and address and he told me 4:30! I triple-checked!_

Jehan keeps up a steady panic-thought-train throughout the rest of the meeting. ‘Courf told me,’ he repeats in his head. He continues to do this throughout Enjolras and Feuilly arriving, throughout telling everyone about his sonnets-paired-with-testimonials idea for the articles, throughout fucking reading what he’s written to them. All of this just barely registers. Nerves don’t even have the chance to surface above the panicked repeating, because Jehan cannot get two certain thoughts out of his head: did Courfeyrac tell him to come half an hour early to the meeting on purpose? And if he did, why????????

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, it's finally up! I've had this one done for a while now, but the beginning of chapter eight took me a hot minute to get right. I wanted to know where that one was headed before I put this one up for y'all to see.
> 
> Chapter eight does have some Halloween Happenings but I'm only about halfway through so it'll be a little while yet.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	8. Happy Hallowed Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Aw, hell yes!!!!” Courf cheers. Someone turns the volume up so everyone can hear as Michael Jackson starts to sing Thriller. Courf starts singing too, he knows all the words so far, and Jehan feels something not anxiety-related (for a change) hitch in his chest. Courfeyrac performed at the winter clothing drive last weekend, but he was onstage, so it was a lot like all the times Jehan has seen him at the club showcase. This is the first time he’s been this close while Courfeyrac sings, and somehow the fact that no one else can hear him over the party ruckus makes it all the more breathtaking.

“You’re staring again,” Grantaire whispers out the side of his mouth.

“I am not!”

Jehan’s argument would be stronger if he could take his eyes off Courfeyrac for a second to glare at Grantaire, but he can’t seem to achieve even that. To be fair, there is an awful lot on display to be staring at tonight.

They are at the Amis Halloween party. Cosette is hosting it at her dad’s house, who seems really cool with the whole thing.

“I’ve been having club parties here since I was in high school,” Cosette told Jehan when he asked about it. “I had a pretty lonely childhood, so he always wants to make sure I can host my friends.”

Jehan’s not been to many parties (big shocker) and certainly never any Halloween ones. Halloween is for elaborate costumes and candy, for scary movies and decorating the house and pumpkin carving, not for awkward socializing in cramped spaces with alcohol.

Jehan hadn’t even thought of the party as something that could possibly be happening until Feuilly had asked him if he was going. He didn’t think anyone would mind his absence, but Feuilly started coughing he gasped so aggressively when Jehan said as much.

“But you have to come,” Feuilly’d cried. “It’s Halloween!”

“Yeah, exactly! Why would I want to spend Halloween at a _party_ with _alcohol_????” – cue more flustered sputtering from Feuilly – “and aren’t holiday parties not really within the club’s purview?”

“Jehan, my sweet, _sweet_ dumbass, that is where you are _so_ wrong!”

Halloween, Feuilly had explained, is a big deal for a lot of members of the Amis, _especially_ Enjolras. The club always works extra hard to make sure the October drive can go up early and leave time to celebrate Halloween because it’s that big of a deal.

Grantaire, of course, had been no help: “There’s a Halloween party??? We have to go! And I am serious about the ‘we’ because if I go without you I’ll revert back to irresponsible party Grantaire and get myself kicked out of the club.” Grantaire had then turned on some damn good puppy eyes for someone with permanent “designer “eye bags (as he calls them.) “You don’t want that to happen now do you, Jehan??”

So, because of the insufferable prodding of his “friends,” Jehan is at his first Halloween party, instead of celebrating in a comfortably spooky way. It’s also his first university party. Woohoo. It’s a night of “fun” firsts.

“Oh sure, deny it all you want,” Grantaire taunts. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.” He tries to take another swig of his drink, but as it’s difficult with his fake talons, he ends up spilling most of it on his grey collar. Jehan snorts. Karma can be a fast-acting bitch, and he likes that about her.

“You’re one to talk,” he retorts. “You didn’t blink for like five minutes after Enj walked in.”

“I was simply unprepared,” R sniffs, with as much dignity as he can muster while wiping vodka off his spray-painted hoodie.

“You smell like the high school parking lot the day after graduation.” Jehan mimes puking. Grantaire retaliates by pretending to spill the remainder of his drink on Jehan; thankfully Eponine walks by and interrupts this farce.

“A vodka-smelling gargoyle, very niche costume R,” he flips her a taloned middle finger, “I love your dragon, Jehan! Did you do all those scales yourself?”

Jehan did not. He and Grantaire had been working on their costumes together pretty much as soon as they’d met. Grantaire made a lot from scratch – paper macher horns, torn clothes with spray paint, wooden frame wings – and Jehan had spent that construction time dyeing a pair of thrifted go-go boots maroon red. He already had a high-quality red cape that had been the pride and joy of his dress-up games as a kid, and Grantaire showed him how to make great dragon spikes with the excess paper macher stuff. But Jehan didn’t know what to do with his face. He spent the weeks of October agonizing about it until Grantaire had explained he was going to be doing his own gargoyle makeup and could also do scales for Jehan.

Jehan hadn’t known what to expect, especially because they skipped their last classes today just so Grantaire would have time to do both faces, but he was astounded with the results. R really knows what he’s doing; for all intents and purposes, Jehan _is_ a scaly, red dragon, and R did it with just some simple lines of makeup! His own gargoyle face is even more intense because he’d made it look like his horns were cracking through his forehead.

“I did Jehan’s scales,” Grantaire sneers lovingly at Ep. He sweeps into a bow, nearly knocking Jehan over with his wingspan, “so I thank you for the almost-compliment.”

Eponine rolls her eyes, but Jehan can see she’s fighting off a smile. Ep is dressed just in some black clothes, but she’s got some white-faced ghoul makeup that’s almost as impressive as Grantaire’s work (her eyeliner game is pretty strong, probably from more regular practice.)

“Have you guys seen Marius?” she asks, with an affected nonchalance that doesn’t fool either of them.

“Uh,” Jehan taps his boot toe into the carpet, “he and Cosette went on an errand run for more candy. Dunno when they’ll be back….”

“If they’ll be back,” Grantaire mutters into his vodka. Jehan gives him an incredulous glare.

“Look, if you want to punch him, I wouldn’t object right now,” he says by way of apology for his idiotic best friend.

“Nah, it’s all good. Just point me in the direction of that Tequila Bahorel brought and I’ll be right as rain.” There is just the barest hint of a tremor in Eponine’s voice. Jehan is impressed; maybe she should have auditioned for the drama program. He wants to give her a hug or even a simple pat on the arm, but he knows such a gesture would not be appreciated (he might just _loose_ an arm for his troubles) so he and R dutifully point her in the direction of the table Bahorel set up by the kitchen.

When Eponine leaves, they’re quiet again.

Jehan’s attention drifts back over to the right side of the room, where the Golden Trio (as Musichetta has coined them) are hogging the chip bowl. Enjolras is decked out in an intensely detail-accurate Captain America costume, cowl and all. The massive shield he touted in when he arrived is currently serving as a bowl for candy in the center of the room. Jehan supposes he can understand Grantaire’s (strong) reaction to the sight of the costume – Grantaire loves MCU comics and the cowl makes Enjolras’ eyes look even more intense, which Jehan didn’t think was possible. Combeferre’s costume is equally as elaborate and impressive, though Jehan isn’t quite sure who he is supposed to be with his aviator goggles and his top hat. Gentleman pilot, perhaps?

The most attention-grabbing is without a doubt Courfeyrac, of course, though Jehan likes to think this would be the case even without a massive crush on him. Courfeyrac has gone for a full gender-swap version of Wonder Woman, and it would be a lot to take in for anyone. Jehan’s not sure where he found booty shorts and a bustier to fit him, there definitely had to have been sewing involved. There’s a distracting amount of long leg and toned arm and shoulder to contend with. Jehan wants to stop staring, he does, but even when he succeeds in drawing his eyes away they always return. Courf is the magnetic center of any room for Jehan, but it’s not like this is his day-to-day attire (of which Jehan is only just getting used to four weeks into knowing him properly.) If he can hardly take his eyes off Courfeyrac on a good day, _how_ , pray tell, is he supposed to now?!? And how is Courf not cold? Or maybe he is, and he’s just suffering through it for the costume, in which case Jehan is very appreciative of his dedication…

Oh shit, oh fuck Courfeyrac is now walking over to where Jehan and Grantaire are stood by the wall! SHIT! Jehan hasn’t talked to Courfeyrac since last Wednesday, in large part because whenever Courfeyrac comes up to a group Jehan is talking with Jehan runs away (Coping 101 folks!)

Jehan has spent all that time over-analysing the events of the past Wednesday. He’s been obsessively opening and staring at the text chain where Courf sent his address and the time, just because he can. He’s written poem after poem and listed scenario after scenario, some plausible and some very much not - Jehan daydreams an excessive amount for any human, but Grantaire and even Feuilly have definitely noticed that his head has been higher in the clouds than usual.

Talking with Courfeyrac right now would seem unavoidable, because he has made direct eye contact while walking over. He seems intent on talking to Jehan. Just his luck! This is why no good comes from Halloween parties!

Jehan makes a strangled sound that resembles the chickens on the farm.

“Jehan, what…? Oh.” Grantaire catches sight of the Amazon warrior on the move and snickers. “I wasn’t sure if I should follow Ep and see if she’s alright, but suddenly I feel as though now is the perfect time to go.”

“R, no! Don’t leave me, plea…” Jehan tries to grab hold of Grantaire’s arm, but the scaly gloves he has on prevent him from getting a good grip.

Grantaire shakes him off with ease and then leans in to whisper: “Just talk to him. Maybe you’ll finally get an explanation about Wednesday and you can stop obsessing over it!”

_But what if I don’t want an explanation?_

Ok, that’s a half-lie. The truth is, Jehan wants an explanation, but only if it corroborates the daydreams he’s been having. Having an explanation might quiet the pandemonium that’s been Jehan’s mind this last week and a half, but it will also put an end to all the things that could be possible. The dreaming ends once Jehan has an explanation! Although…while Jehan doesn’t think anything will stop him completely from obsessing over what happened, he can admit to himself that it would be nice to think of something else before he falls asleep each night.

Grantaire makes his great escape just as Courfeyrac saunters up.

“Jehan! Long time no talk! Seems like we’ve been moving in different trajectories all week!”

“Haha…yeah…”

Courfeyrac slings the other end of his “Lasso of Truth” – aka a sparkly gold scarf – around his neck with a flourish. “We should put an end to that right now!” This declaration is louder than it needs to be, but no one pays any mind because it’s just…it’s Courfeyrac.

Jehan nods. He thinks Courf might be a little past tipsy, and though he knows the situation is completely different right now, he feels the stirrings of that old panic.

And then Courf drops some of the chipper-ness; he unslings his lasso scarf so he’s hanging onto both ends and looks at his feet. Jehan forces himself to take a deep breath and actually feels a little calmer for it.

“I, uh. I _have_ been meaning to talk to you about Wednesday.”

Jehan feels his heart stutter. “Oh, yeah?” he hears himself say.

“Yeah, wanted to explain myself.”

Jehan resorts to nodding again.

“The thing is, I just wanted to have a chance to hang out with you and let you get comfy in the space before the meeting started. I really like when I can host people, and I was like, mega excited you were coming. I was like ‘Jehan’s coming whoooo!’” He stumbles a little from the force of his imitation and Jehan finds himself giggling along. “But then I realized that everyone else at the meeting had been to my place before and you hadn’t, and I thought, now Courfeyrac, you would be really stressed out in a situation like that so why don’t you just ease Jehan into it? You could hang out with him one-on-one before business starts, which you’ve been dying to do! Win-win!”

Courfeyrac is breathless once he gets this last half out.

_He was dying to hang out with me?!!!!!!!!!!!!!?_

Jehan says, “Why didn’t you just ask me to come early?”

Courfeyrac sighs, and brings those alluring eyes up to Jehan’s scale-decorated face. Jehan is suddenly very thankful this isn’t one of his daydreams; who knew real life could be better at times?

“Because I’m an idiot and I _forgot_ and then I was panicking ‘cause it was like a day or two before and I didn’t account for ‘Ferre being the keener he is…It was dumb, and I’m sorry. Long and short, I should have just been honest. I’m sorry.”

Well, as far as explanations/apologies go…

_He wanted to see me! One-on-one!_

“You’re not an idiot,” Jehan says. Then he mocks a demanding tone: “Just see to it that this never happens again!!”

Courfeyrac salutes him, “Sir, yes, sir!”

A familiar pop beat starts to float from the speakers on the other side of the room.

“Aw, hell yes!!!!” Courf cheers. Someone turns the volume up so everyone can hear as Michael Jackson starts to sing _Thriller_. Courf starts singing too, he knows all the words so far, and Jehan feels something not anxiety-related (for a change) hitch in his chest. Courfeyrac performed at the winter clothing drive last weekend, but he was onstage, so it was a lot like all the times Jehan has seen him at the club showcase. This is the first time he’s been this close while Courfeyrac sings, and somehow the fact that no one else can hear him over the party ruckus makes it all the more breathtaking.

Jehan feels a smile split across his face; Courf starts busting out the moves once the song reaches the chorus. Jehan is content to bop along to the beat as best he can with his limited rhythm, until…

“Oh come on, you can do better than that!” Courfeyrac cries, and that’s all the prompting it takes for Jehan to start dancing like he’s never danced before. It’s a lot of flailing arms and he almost falls twice, but that’s all overthrown by Courf’s smile. Jehan finds it hard to breathe through all the laughter sparking between the two of them. Being in rhythm doesn’t matter either, because Jehan can’t really hear the music over Courf’s wheezing breaths as he laughs and still tries to sing along. He manages quite well. Jehan’s heart drums a fast, wild drum in his ears and he’s pretty sure he likes the sound of that joyful beat more than any music right now anyway.

Then Jehan sees something that stops him in his tracks. Since _Thriller_ , the carpeted area has become something of a dance floor, and not too far from where he and Courf have been dancing, Jehan sees _Enjolras and Grantaire_ doing the same.

Courfeyrac stops moving because he sees the surprise on Jehan’s face.

“What?” he asks, and then: “Oh my GOD.”

“Does Enjolras frequent the dance floor often?” Jehan stage whispers, so Courf can still hear him over the music.

“No, never, really.”

They exchange a knowing look, confirming once and for all that Courf has been just as aware as Jehan since day one of…whatever this is that’s happening between Enj and R.

They go back to dancing, albeit with less mirth than before so they can both sneak surreptitious glances at the unlikely dance partners.

Grantaire has taken his wings off, a wise course of action, Jehan thinks, and Enjolras has done the same with his cowl. He had his hair in a bun underneath it, but now the top half is coming undone. Neither he nor Grantaire seems to mind. And it’s not like they’re slow-dancing (that would be impressive and strange to see to the Addams’ Family theme song) but they’re definitely dancing together, closer than Jehan and Courfeyrac are. They’re both really good too, at least to Jehan’s untrained eye, another hidden talent that warrants yelling at Grantaire when they get home (they’re having a spooky movie marathon after this.)

Eventually, he and Courf wear themselves out – of dancing and of spying - and move into the kitchen; it was full of people at one point, but they can hear the sounds of what must be an intense game of beer pong coming from the living room where the others surely have migrated. Through some unspoken agreement, Jehan and Courf stay in the kitchen, breathing heavily from all the flailing and shouting.

“Can I get you something?” Courfeyrac asks.

“Sure, if it doesn’t have alcohol in it. Thanks.”

They stand there in the relative quiet, sipping their drinks and leaning on the counter. They don’t talk much, but Jehan doesn’t mind at the moment. Maybe it’s the late hour. Maybe Courf’s voice is spent from shouting along to all the songs. Maybe their costumes afford them some distance from the rushing rapids of usual thoughts that barge in on silence. Or maybe Jehan is finally starting to feel comfortable around _his friend_ Courfeyrac, finally starting to believe they are truly friends. Honestly, achieving this level of comfort while your crush is standing right there in booty shorts deserves some kind of award.

“I started getting some chords down for that piece you helped me with.”

“Nice! I…I’d love to hear it sometime.” Jehan is proud of himself for getting those words out; though it’s the truth, it feels like admitting way too much.

“Yeah?” Courf looks pleased, and also a little like he doesn’t believe Jehan means it.

“Yeah!” Jehan says as sincerely as he can muster. “I want to hear it come to life as a song. I mean, I think I get some credit for getting the ball rolling again.”

Courfeyrac chuckles. “True, true. Well, then, do you wanna maybe come over sometime this week or the next? Just a hangout this time, no deception or Amis meetings, Combeferre won’t make an appearance, I promise…”

“I’d really like that! Sounds fun.”

And if Jehan’s grip tightens exponentially on his drink in an effort to not squeal with joy, Courf either doesn’t notice or is kind enough not to comment.

* * *

“Four!”

Grantaire’s chewed-on pencil flies through the air, narrowly missing Jehan’s nose.

As if that wouldn’t already do the trick, Grantaire waves his hands aggressively in front of Jehan’s face.

“Earth to Jehan! Did you even hear the question I asked?”

Jehan feels himself rudely being brought back down to earth, feels the conversation he was having in Courfeyrac’s room full of bean bag chairs evaporate from his consciousness. Now he won’t remember the details when he picks the daydream up again before he goes to bed!

“Was that really necessary?”

“Did you hear my question?”

Jehan really hates when Grantaire counters his questions with perfectly valid questions of his own.

He hates when Grantaire is _right_ even more.

“Noooo,” Jehan sticks out his tongue, “could you please repeat it?”

Grantaire gives him a Reprimanding Eyebrow, but there’s a smile to go along with it.

“Which ancient philosopher sang phallic songs to worship Dionysus?”

“Aristotle!” Jehan chirps, with no hesitation, and Grantaire groans.

“Can we stop?” He puts the notebook with their study questions over his face before Jehan can even respond.

“But we’re studying!”

“I’m trying to study, _you’re_ daydreaming about going over to Courfeyrac’s again. And you know all this already.”

Jehan feels he should be annoyed Grantaire wants to stop early, but he can’t really muster the emotion, not when R’s one hundred percent right again (damn him!)

“Do you want me to ask the questions then?”

“No, I want to stop studying and go for ice cream.”

Jehan raises an eyebrow of his own. Grantaire lets the notebook slide off his face and looks over when Jehan doesn’t say anything back.

“What?” he asks. “I’m already doing better in this class than my advisor ever thought possible thanks to you, I can chill over this quiz.” He stands up. “Plus, it’s almost my birthday, so I say we should go!”

“Ok, ok,” Jehan concedes. “I could use something to get me out of my head.”

“You’re telling me!” Grantaire grabs his knapsack and slides his feet into his sneakers without untying the laces (they got a foot of snow last night and Grantaire still won’t wear his winter boots.) “Is this good ‘stuck in your head’ or bad?”

Jehan isn’t sure how to answer. Both? All? None of the above? He shrugs, though it may get lost in the shuffle of putting his winter coat on over his fluffy sweater (the price of wanting ice cream in November.) Grantaire must decide to drop it, because he doesn’t prod any further all the way to the ice cream shop.

Grantaire spends at least five minutes stomping the snow off his shoes when they get there, and Jehan feels an epic ‘I-told-you-so’ moment coming on.

“My socks are wet!” R complains.

“Then wear your fucking boots!” Jehan hisses. They peter off into giggles and then silence, caught up in the intense concentration of deciding what flavour and toppings they want.

It isn’t until after they’ve paid and are trudging back to Grantaire’s place through the growing dusk that he seems to remember their original topic before the walk.

“You seem less freaked out about going to Courf’s again.”

There’s so much nonchalance in that statement that Jehan thinks Grantaire must have been waiting for what he determined was the appropriate amount of time between discussions to bring it up once more.

“I feel more chill about it, definitely.”

R scoffs. “You don’t have a single chill bone in your body!”

“I know _that_ , I said more chill, not that I had normal chill levels. Jeez.”

“Jeez!” Grantaire pitches his voice abnormally high. Frankly, the most insulting part is that Jehan’s voice is barely a different pitch than his friend’s…That’s why he waits one more block before shoving Grantaire _just hard enough_ he almost drops his ice cream. Jehan’s fairly certain the pitches of Grantaire’s anguished “MY ICECREAM!” cries go into soprano ranges, but he’ll have to ask Courfeyrac when he sees him at Saturday’s meeting.

* * *

He almost finds himself telling the ice cream tale to Courf before the meeting starts, while Grantaire is occupied with some kind of advanced game of thumb-war with Bahorel on Jehan’s other side, but Feuilly runs in at the last second.

“Sorry I’m late y’all!” He throws his stuff into the entrance behind him and plops down in the nearest empty sitting space.

“Great!” Enjolras claps his hands together and rubs them like he’s plotting someone’s downfall (it’s more likely than not). “We can start the meeting now, if Grantaire and Bahorel would be so kind to put up their thumbs?”

Grantaire smirks, but his eyes are warm: “Oh, _anything_ for you, Apollo.” He winks lazily up at Enj, but dutifully turns away from Bahorel and crosses his arms to show he’s listening. Enjolras nods once in response; he looks at the ground for the briefest of seconds – Jehan wonders if he’s reading too much into that action - and then launches into progress reports on the campaign against Thenardier. Jehan glances to his left to see if Courfeyrac noticed Enjolras’ pause, only to see Courf pursing his lips and looking right back out of the corner of his eye. Jehan raises his eyebrow in his best attempt at Grantaire’s You Seeing What I’m Seeing? look. Courfeyrac nods shortly and raises his own dark eyebrow (Jehan loves how thick they are, they make him think of engineers running a steam engine.) Now, Jehan is not as fluent in Courf’s faces as he is R’s, but he’s fairly certain that nod and eyebrow raise combo means ‘Affirmative, my dude!’

Jehan is…kind of very relieved Feuilly was late today. It has left lots of time to talk with Courfeyrac by himself. And they _have_ been talking, about everything of consequence and nothing of concern. It’s the first time he and Courf have held a two-way conversation surrounded by other people, and Jehan feels an odd, prickling sense of pride as he wonders if anyone else has noticed. He thinks Grantaire must have, because he’s occupied himself with Bahorel ever since the buff man sat down, not turning to look slyly back at Jehan even once. Jehan appreciates the effort that must’ve taken to refrain from teasing.

He’s wondering if Feuilly noticed Jehan and Courfeyrac chatting it up like old chums (that claim is barely even far-fetched!) but before he can dive into imagining how Feuilly might feel, the meeting proper begins.

It’s a good meeting. Enjolras is in fine form, full of fiery action and planning. The petition is going so well Combeferre has to print more paper copies of the petition as well as designate someone to respond to club emails in a timely manner – this role goes to Joly because he is the only one who rivals Combeferre in neatness.

The newspaper articles are doing well too. The newspaper committee has reported that there’s been a slight increase in views and sales since they began. Enjolras had invited Jehan to read his first piece for the paper the Saturday it was published and the other members responded with great fervor. He got two punches in the arm for making both Bahorel and Eponine tear up! Bossuet also teared up but even Jehan knows Bossuet cries at the drop of a hat so that was less punch-worthy. Musichetta wrote the article for this week’s edition and it’s been paired with a testimony from a female student Thenardier frequently harassed last year. Jehan is very excited to see what responses it gets.

Some of Enjolras’ captivating conviction drops off as the meeting runs to a close. If Jehan had to guess, he’d say Enjolras was nervous or embarrassed about something, but that’s impossible. He doesn’t think embarrassment is an emotion Enjolras can feel? The closest adjacent emotion Jehan has seen was a sheepish apologetic quality when things got out of hand, and that was _with_ Combeferre’s prompting.

Jehan doesn’t have the means to communicate all this to Courfeyrac in the middle of the meeting, so he keeps it to himself.

The cause of it all is soon made evident anyway: Enjolras clears his throat in a request for attention.

“Before the meeting ends, I’d like to just draw attention to the fact that _someone_ ,” here the leader pauses for dramatic effect, and Jehan is struck by the notion that Enjolras would also make a talented drama student at times, “is turning 20 tomorrow.” Jehan bites his cheek to keep his emotions off his face. He doesn’t dare turn to look at Grantaire, though he can feel his arm stiffen imperceptibly.

“So, let’s all give Grantaire our best Les Amis de L’ABC birthday wishes!!!!!!!!!”

The rest of the club members cheer and launch into a very chaotic and very complex rendition of Happy Birthday. There are several verses, with increasingly dirty and pun-filled lyrics written by Courf and Bahorel on one infamous night out. Courfeyac proudly told Jehan neither of them recalled writing the song, but when they woke on Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta’s couch, there were three napkins beside their heads with all the “new and improved” lyrics.

Jehan finally turns to gauge Grantaire’s reaction. His friend’s mouth is stretched wide and his eyes don’t seem to know where to look. He keeps taking in breaths and then not letting them out. When Grantaire’s eyes land on Jehan, they narrow with (correctly placed) suspicion. Grantaire mouths ‘Did you do this?’ Jehan shrugs innocently, then joins in the song, proud of himself for remembering most of the dirty lyrics and confirming for Grantaire that Jehan most definitely ratted to Enjolras about his birthday.

He feels too proud of himself for pulling this off to be worried – _Enjolras_ was the one to bring it up in the meeting, and he was flustered!!!!!!!!!!!! Jehan is positive there might be hope for these two idiots and their feelings yet.

The bright and brimming look on Grantaire’s face is worth all the crap Jehan might get from him later anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok! Here it is! That ended up being a lot more of a little while than I wanted it to be. November was a little rough!
> 
> But it's here, I'm very pleased with this chapter and excited for the next one. I'm planning on cranking out a lot of writing over my break.
> 
> Who doesn't like Halloween vibes right as everyone is prepping for the holiday season? :)
> 
> Happy Holidays!!!!!!!!!!


	9. The Perks of Inviting Bob Ross to Your Birthday Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire almost falls over, but regains his footing with an affronted look. He wags a paint-splattered finger. “Not so fast! My plans are not yet done, young padawan!” He sets his paintbrush down and runs off to his room. When he comes back he’s brandishing his bong like it’s a trophy.

Bob Ross is telling R and Jehan to add a little “naked” tree to their _Island in the Wilderness_ painting the next day; Jehan does so happily, thinking this is the best birthday party he’s ever been to (not that the list is very long.) He peers at Grantaire over his canvas and easel with a smile.

“What are you looking at? We’re almost done, pay attention!” Grantaire flicks the end of his paintbrush at his friend with an intensity Jehan wasn’t expecting. The seriousness with which Grantaire has been taking this has altogether been unexpected, although, to be fair to Jehan, none of this afternoon could be called _expected_.

Feuilly and Bahorel took Grantaire out for drinks last night to celebrate his birthday. The four of them had all gone back to Jehan’s place after the meeting to play video games and eat a Heaven and Hell layer cake Jehan had spent all Friday night and Saturday morning preparing – it was well worth the effort for the taste and the looks on the other’s faces (“Jehan, you’re, like, a proper chef!!!” “Where have you and your baked goodies been all my life?!?”)

Once it was deemed late enough in the evening, the three partiers had set out and Jehan had set to cleaning. He’d been invited to join their revelry, of course, and he had _tried_ to entertain the idea of going, but he just wasn’t there yet. Maybe someday, when Jehan got a handle on house parties, he could attempt a bar. But not yet. And certainly not on the eve of his best friend’s birthday, where Jehan’s anxiety and overall lameness would be the worst kind of buzzkill he could think of.

The price for opting out of the bar night was coming over to Grantaire’s house as soon as R was alive the day of the birthday proper and doing whatever Grantaire wanted, no questions asked. This struck Jehan as very fair, but he wasn’t going to lie and say he hadn’t been a little nervous.

Two large easels, a full set of painting supplies, and a Bob Ross painting tutorial on R’s TV had not been anticipated AT ALL, but Jehan is having the time of his life.

Bob Ross is now telling them to sign their respective paintings in bright red. Grantaire is still zealously adding “little twigs and trees” with his painter’s knife, but Jehan thinks he’s done with the details. He’s surprisingly pleased with how his painting turned out, which is a feeling he can barely remember from his pre-teen years, before he learned enough about art for his perfectionism to set in and plague him with every paint stroke; he doesn’t want to add anymore trees and ruin it. Jehan signs the canvas with a flourish, then saunters over to see what Grantaire has accomplished. The end credits of the Bob Ross video are now playing and Grantaire seems to have finally finished with his knife trees.

“R, that’s beautiful!” Jehan says. Grantaire turns with a smirk.

“You don’t have to sound so surprised, man.”

Jehan rolls his eyes. “I’m not surprised it’s beautiful, I’m just baffled by how different from mine it is!” It is striking how different the results are, even though they’ve been using the same paints and tutorial. Jehan’s shades are all very bright and strong, his strokes thick and full of paint. He’s surprised to see that Grantaire’s is all soft lines and shades, much more similar to Bob Ross’ own painting from the video.

Jehan gets closer to appreciate the talent of his friend, swinging his arm around Grantaire’s shoulder for good measure. This will make a great compare n’ contrast poem later, he thinks. _Friends come in all and any hues_ …

They’re silent for a moment. Grantaire rests his head on Jehan’s shoulder, unprompted but never unwelcome. Then Jehan’s overwhelming excitement about Grantaire’s present rears it’s head, after having so successfully squashed it to focus on the paintings.

“That was a lot of fun!” Jehan chirps, and pushes away from Grantaire’s leaning head. “Present time?”

Grantaire almost falls over, but regains his footing with an affronted look. He wags a paint-splattered finger. “Not so fast! My plans are not yet done, young padawan!” He sets his paintbrush down and runs off to his room. When he comes back he’s brandishing his bong like it’s a trophy.

Jehan bits the inside of his lip to keep his face muscles still. “You wanna smoke?”

Grantaire makes a tsking noise. “Oh, ye of little faith. We’re not just going to smoke! First, we’re going to take pictures of our Bob Ross masterpieces, then we’re going to smoke, and _then_ ,” he waggles his eyebrows, “we’re going to turn our paintings into new and creepy versions of themselves, the creepiest we can come up with!”

Jehan pretends to hesitate, fake hemming and hawing while his mind is going through as many morbid and haunted ideas as he can think of. Finally, he releases his lip from his teeth and lets himself smile.

“Well, alright, let’s do it! And then present after, yeah?”

“Uh, yeahhhh?!!” Grantaire seems perplexed, like he was anticipating having to remind Jehan of the Birthday Agreement™ and fight with him to do all this, probably on the weed front. Jehan gives no further comment and no context, just runs to get his phone for a ‘Before’ picture. He has a feeling the ‘Before’ and ‘After’ images of these paintings are going to be veryyyyyyyyyyy different.

Grantaire watches avidly as Jehan takes a hit. Grantaire’s already done his, taking such a long inhale that Jehan is sure he was both a) trying to show off and b) thinking he needed to show Jehan how it’s done. Jehan’s (few) high school friends would find this hilarious on so many levels.

Jehan just raises on eyebrow, takes a steady inhale, and sets the bong down, maintaining eye contact with Grantaire all the time.

“You didn’t cough at all!” Grantaire sputters. Grantaire’s incredulity makes Jehan giggle.

“It’s not like I’ve never smoked before!” he cackles. “I used to hang out with the stoners, dude!” Grantaire’s laughing now too. He shakes his head.

“I guess I just assumed ‘cause you don’t drink.” Jehan shrugs and looks down. He’s not averse to telling Grantaire why he avoids alcohol like the plague, but now is certainly not the time, even though his high has yet to set in. It shouldn’t be too long now, considering he’s already feeling a little floaty. His time in uni has really shot his tolerance, not that Jehan’s surprised.

He asks, “Is that why you wanted to do this? To ‘introduce’ me to being high or whatever?”

“Nah. Just wanted to see what you were game for and what you’re like stoned.”

Jehan relishes the familiar feeling of letting go, like he is being lifted in a hot air balloon above all his anxieties and insecurities. He hasn’t smoked in a while, since…well, since…

“I don’t really know what I’m like,” he murmurs. Jehan then feels the need to start humming, and so he does, swaying a little. He can’t remember the name of this song, but it’s been stuck in his head for the past three days. Oh well.

Grantaire smirks (he’s still waiting for his high to kick in, loser.) “What song is that?” Jehan shrugs.

“Can’t remember.” He looses himself in trying to hum the song as accurately as possible, and the next thing he knows, Grantaire is on the other side of the room, languidly moving his arms.

“What’re you doing?” Jehan calls. Grantaire feels so far away now.

“Interpretive dance!” Grantaire calls back. At that, they both start giggling uncontrollably.They giggle and blink at each other for a few moments more before they remember what they were going to do.

“To the paintbrushes!” Grantaire suddenly declares. His over-the-top gesture of raising his pointer finger to the sky makes him stumble, and sets Jehan off laughing all over again.

It’s an hour later, and they’re finally sitting down so Grantaire can open his present. Jehan’s excitement and nerves have cleared the final vestiges of his high.

“Stop jiggling your legs!” Grantaire reprimands. “I am a very easy person to please, I will like whatever you’ve gotten me!”

Jehan just bites his lip and shrugs helplessly.

It is immediately determined that Grantaire needs scissors to undo the twine Jehan used as ribbon, so he goes to see if he can unnearth some, leaving Jehan to admire their now-haunted Bob Ross paintings.

Again, their creations are very different. Grantaire’s gone for a very dark look, blacks and greys and browns. His island now has a mausoleum standing atop, and crawling out of the (black) water towards it are these humanoid things that look a lot like the Inferi from Harry Potter (though Grantaire swears up and down he’s never read the books or seen the movies.)

Jehan’s very proud of his painting. The sky is blood red and the lake has become a mish-mash of colour, in paint so thick you could peel it off. His trees are much the same as pre-haunting (Grantaire stripped his bare) but wreathed in flames. Through the sky swoop things that could be demons or dragons or dinosaurs…maybe all three. His island has become a floating and bloated dead face.

“ _Dude_.” Grantaire had said when he’d seen it. His high had worn off much earlier than Jehan’s, so he’d just stood there behind him, impatiently waiting for Jehan to finish his inebriated work.

“Found ‘em!” Grantaire returns with the scissors, taking the corner into the living room so fast that Jehan has to bite back a warning about running with scissors in an effort to avoid sounding like Nan. Grantaire cuts through the twine and begins tearing into the paper. Jehan knows he has nothing to be nervous about, but he can’t seem to help it: his leg starts jiggling again. Grantaire either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, because he’s lifting the books from their box.

“Jehan,” he breathes, “are these…?”

“Those Snoopy collectable books you wanted?” Jehan finishes for him in a rush. “Yeah.” Grantaire is gaping, and instead of making Jehan happy like it did when he and all the Amis sang, it just makes him flush beet red. Maybe the books are too much? Maybe Grantaire will be embarrassed?

Grantaire flips through them. There are four of them, numbers 11-14 of the Coronet series of Charlie Brown books. They’re the only ones he didn’t have in his collection (yes he has a collection, Jehan has seen it. It’s fabulously nerdy!) His awe as he rifles through the pages is quickly reassuring Jehan that this was a good call.

“Jehan, I…I don’t know what to say! Thank you! Where did you find them?”

Jehan demurs. “It’s wonderful what you can find on Etsy these days.” He doesn’t add that he spent an all-nighter one Saturday hunting down the Etsy shop most likely to have these editions in stock right after Grantaire complained about lacking only four books. Some things are best left between Jehan and his computer.

“Thank you,” Grantaire says again. He slings his closest arm around Jehan’s shoulder. Jehan’s chest blooms with warmth. They lean back on the couch, he notices Grantaire admiring their paintings.

“This has been the best birthday I’ve had in a long time,” Grantaire whispers after a few minutes, and squeezes Jehan’s shoulder.

“This is the best birthday party I’ve ever been to.” Jehan sees his side look and amends, “Not that the list is very long, but…” and R snickers.

They’re quiet for a few minutes more. Jehan thinks that his dead floating face is really quite terrifying; he is very proud. He keeps thinking the warmth in his chest can’t get any bigger and then it does, rounding out the peace of the moment.

_The silence doesn’t feel heavy when it’s with –_

“These paintings are fly as fuck,” Grantaire says suddenly. “But where are we gonna store them?”

Jehan tilts his head to examine their masterpieces from a different angle. “Your bathroom?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a lot of fun to write, though I have no clue how accurate their highs are.
> 
> True to my word, I've done a lot of writing! Chapter ten is almost done, because it was originally going to be part of this chapter. Trying to squish it all together was making me debate getting rid of parts so now they're two separate chapters.
> 
> Hope to have the next one up very soon!


	10. Write for Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sit, sit! Sit anywhere!” Courfeyrac gestures. Jehan hesitates for half a second before plopping into a pink beanbag chair with orange and blue daises – it’s quite the eyesore. Jehan’s gaze is inevitably pulled to it whenever he’s in this room (well, like the one time previous.)
> 
> Courf seats himself in a paisley-patterned beanbag chair close to Jehan with his guitar in hand. It’s not the one he plays at showcase, so he must have multiple.
> 
> “Good choice,” he nods to Jehan’s chosen seat. “You can tell a lot about someone by the beanbag chair they choose.”

Jehan is taking a nap after the Remembrance Day ceremony when he gets a phone call. He fumbles for the phone, contemplating not answering it for a second before he sees who’s calling.

“Hey Feuilly, what’s up?”

“Not much,” the redhead says. “I was wondering if you wanted to come see this poetry reading with me on Wednesday. My friend’s putting it on near the Musain.”

Jehan won’t lie: he’s surprised. If one of the other Amis had asked him, he wouldn’t have said he and Feuilly were close enough for Wednesday poetry reading outings. He’d love to go! As it is though….

“Sorry, dude. I’d love to go, but I’m hanging out with Courf on Wednesday and I’ve got a big class load the day after.” This last bit is a lie, but Jehan wants to make the most of every second he has Courfeyrac to himself.

“Oh, that’s chill.”

“Yeah, sorry.”

“All good! No worries!” Jehan hears Feuilly take a breath, then hold it, like he isn’t sure he wants to say what he was going to. He decides to go through with it: “You’re going over to Courfeyrac’s place?”

Jehan’s stomach dives into the depths of his torso. This has just reached new levels of awkward in terms of dealing with Feuilly’s feelings for Courf. In his dazed post-nap state, he’d nearly forgotten his (circumstantial, R would say) theory.

“Yeah, we might look at some songs of his!” Damn, that was too chipper! It’s Jehan’s hope that Feuilly will assume this hang-out is more of a writing work-sesh than anything else (although it is also Jehan’s hope that this be more than a work-sesh…)

“Cool, cool, cool.” Jehan listens very closely, but he can’t detect any of the burdensome sadness Feuilly seemed to feel that day Courfeyrac blew him off. Maybe he’s not upset? Maybe Jehan hanging out with Courf isn’t anything to worry about because Jehan must be so far off Courfeyrac’s romantic radar - ok that is just sad and overthink-y, Jehan! He tells his brain to snap out of it.

“You know,” Feuilly muses, thankfully helping to draw Jehan away from his train of thought, “Courfeyrac is very particular about who he shows his songs to before he performs them.”

Jehan is still trying to sift for sadness in Feuilly’s voice, so he’s barely listening to the actual words. “Oh?”

“Oh, _yeah_.” Jehan can practically hear Feuilly nodding sagely along with his words. “You guys must be getting pretty close, huh?” Feuilly sounds almost as if he’s giggling, and this is what draws Jehan back into the conversation like a cartoon cane pulling him offstage.

“What?”

“Oh you know,” no, Jehan is not mistaking the mischievousness in Feuilly’s voice, he sounds like he’s twirling a mustache through his fingers, “you two just seem like you’re getting along like a house on fire.” Jehan can’t remember the last time he heard someone use that expression; it was probably his Pop.

He is very confused by this turn of events and even more so by Feuilly’s teasing tone.

He asks, “So?”

There’s a pause. Jehan pictures Feuilly shrugging or winking. Or both.

“Just… you know…” there’d definitely be eyebrows involved if they were having this conversation in person, “you guys are cute, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Riiiiiiiight,” Jehan says, even as his heart and brain start running a mile a minute. Has he been wrong this entire time????? “And that’s _all_ you’re saying?”

Feuilly giggles. “For now. Have fun on Wednesday!” He adds a trill on the end because Feuilly is just enough of a dramatic motherfucker to pull it off.

He also has the audacity to hang up before Jehan responds, leaving a shell-shocked Jehan to wonder: what in fresh hell just happened?

* * *

Jehan manages to ring the doorbell right when he gets to Courfeyrac’s; this could be called progress.

“Come on in!” Courf beckons. He and Jehan exchange a smile that sets _all_ the butterflies loose in Jehan’s stomach. He tries to breathe around them as they climb the stairs.

The Halloween decorations have been removed from the door and in their place is a simple poppy with the words _Lest We Forget_ in cursive on a banner beneath. It looks hand-drawn – Jehan can hear Grantaire groaning in his head: “AnOTher friend with hidden art talents?!?”

“Where do you find the time to make all your door ornaments?” Jehan asks as he sets his tote bag down. “I can barely find the time to clean my bathroom!”

Courf snorts at that. “I drag Marius into helping me draw AND find supplies. It’s the price he pays for being late with the rent on numerous occasions.”

“I didn’t know you lived with Marius!” Jehan feels a little embarrassed. He’s been here before, for all the gods’ sakes! But he hadn’t paid the other door in Courf’s hallway any mind.

“Oh he’s rarely here.” Courfeyrac moves into the kitchen and Jehan dutifully follows. “Do you want some hot chocolate? I know how to make it all frothy!”

Maybe it’s Courfeyrac’s excitement about his hot chocolate making skills, but Jehan takes him up on the offer and doesn’t even feel too bad about it.

“Yeah, anyway,” Courf goes on as he grabs the fixings and begins pouring and stirring, “Marius is too busy stalking Cosette most of the time to be here with his _lonely_ roommate.” Jehan purposefully ignores the emphasis he places on lonely.

“Please tell me you’re exaggerating? He doesn’t actually stalk her?”

“Following her around to figure out what classes she’s taking so he can take the same ones is coming very close, don’t you think? He’s besotted, poor boy. But she must see something in him.”

Poor Eponine, Jehan thinks. He wonders if Courf is as perceptive about that struggle as he is about Grantaire and Enjolras.

“How hot do you like your chocolate?”

“Lukewarm, please.”

Courfeyrac gives him an affronted look and Jehan laughs. “You asked.”

Courf just shakes his head, smiling a little smile that makes Jehan wish he could sequester it away in a treasure chest to look at when he’s feeling sad.

Courf’s hot chocolate is really good. His conversation is even better. They’re hitting all the highlights from the Halloween party and the four meetings Jehan has been to since. Courfeyrac heaps mounds and mounds of praise on Jehan for his newspaper article and his idea of pairing the writings with testimonials from other students (apparently Musichetta’s article is stirring up some of the faculty too – Courf and Enjolras think this is a good thing, Jehan is on Combeferre’s side in being not too sure about that.) It’s enough to make Jehan squirm, but he manages to change the subject with grace to Grantaire’s birthday shenanigans.

He’s finishing the tale when he gestures vehemently with his hot chocolate mug, and instead of splashing the entire kitchen table, finds it empty. Courfeyrac takes it and his own mug to the sink with a smile.

“I have a question,” he says as he comes back to sit, “and I hope you won’t take it the wrong way.” There are few things Jehan hates more than difficult conversations that begin like this, but it’s Courfeyrac and he’s at his place because they are FRIENDS GODDAMMIT. And so Jehan can handle whatever comes next (he hopes).

He spreads his hands in what he prays is an inviting gesture: “Hit me with your best shot.”

Courfeyrac blows some air out his mouth. “How come you’re so comfy smoking but not drinking?” Jehan’s not sure what his face does just then, but it must contort as he’s still processing the question. Courf scrambles to say, “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, I’m sorry, but I’m curious…”

“It’s ok,” Jehan finds himself saying. To his surprise, he means it. “I appreciate your frankness.” He thinks about Grantaire’s face, a little ashamed as he tried to explain why he wanted to challenge Jehan to smoke and a lot confused about why smoking would provoke such a different reaction from Jehan than drinking. Grantaire has all of Courfeyrac’s curiosity, probably more, but none of his balls to straight up ask Jehan about what he feels. Jehan has had none to address it himself with his best friend, but this moment now with Courfeyrac feels fundamentally different.

“Um. I hung out with the stoners in high school, like I said. That’s how I met my,” _deep breaths, Jehan_ , “ex boyfriend. He was sorta on the edge of that clique or whatever, sorta on the edge of a few of them.” If Courfeyrac is surprised that Jehan has one (1) ex, he has the grace to hide it. Jehan is just proud of himself for maintaining decent eye contact – Courf’s beautiful brown eyes are keeping thoughts of those familiar green ones at bay, for the time being.

“He drank and smoked a lot, so I drank and smoked a lot around him, it was easier that way. I’m lucky, it was never a ‘I _need_ to have this stuff to function’ sitch, but. I think it was for him. Or it…it grew to be. His home life was pretty rough.” Jehan can hear his voice getting quieter and quieter. He clears his throat in an effort to make the words come easier, but the thickness there has nothing to do with mucus and everything to do with all these things he’s stuffed inside rising up after so long.

“He was always pretty intense when he drank, but at our grad party it got wayyyyyy out of control. Too out of control, he scared m- _us_ all. And I…yeah. I blocked his number and wrote him a letter ‘cause I wasn’t sure if he’d remember me breaking up with him in his state and yeah…Haven’t drunk or smoked since. Well. _Hadn’t_ smoked since.” Jehan realizes he’s shaking his legs and forces them to stop. He gulps and looks back up at Courfeyrac (that last bit was too much for his limited eye contact ability.)

“But of course I trust R and I had fun Sunday! I just…alcohol seems like a much more slippery slope to me, I dunno. I hate what it can do to people.”

Courfeyrac reaches out and grasps Jehan’s clasped hands for a second; Jehan tries very hard not to startle, and feels his heartbeat somehow simultaneously settle down and pick up again for an entirely different reason than its previous break-neck pace.

“Jehan, that’s so valid. Thank you for telling me.” He shakes Jehan’s hands in his own like he needs to impress how much he understands what Jehan is saying. “I’m sorry that happened.”

Jehan shrugs. “Wasn’t your fault, wasn’t really anyone’s fault…” Courf raises an eyebrow and Jehan tapers off into silence, caught in the burn of the other man’s eyes. This happens so much to Jehan, you’d think he’d stop getting caught off guard by them, but no: their beauty overtakes him everytime. Jehan finally remembered the folklore creature that Courf’s eyes remind him of: it’s the Samodiva, a Bulgarian wood fae-like thing that lures men to death with it’s charms. A Samodiva’s eyes aren’t the most enticing thing about them, but Jehan thinks if one were real, it would have eyes like Courfeyrac’s.

He’s not sure what Courfeyrac is thinking. He also isn’t speaking, just gazing back at Jehan.

Then he asks softly, “Have you told Grantaire yet?”

“No.” Jehan doesn’t feel like elaborating further.

“Then I’m even more honoured!” Courfeyrac gives Jehan’s hands a final pat and then lets them go. “And hey,” now he leans back, all cavalier and ready to change the mood, and Jehan feels a fierce burst of fondness, “tell Grantaire I’m sorry I couldn’t go out with him, Bahorel, and Feuilly Saturday. Feuilly’s mom needed someone to watch the kids and I thought Feuilly needed the night out more than I did.”

Jehan imagines Courfeyrac has lots of nights out, Courfeyrac is definitely the kind of person who likes nights out (Jehan’s never had friends like that before and now he has more than two, apparently, if he’s counting Feuilly as well.) Maybe if Jehan went out on the town with Courfeyrac he may actually enjoy himself…

Then Courf’s words register further and something slides into place, clicking neatly into Jehan’s brain.

“Do you help Feuilly and his mom out like that a lot????” he asks.

“When I can. I used to do it a lot more when Feuilly and I were dating.”

_What._

The rest of Jehan’s thoughts and mental imaginings freeze over.

Courfeyrac lets out a loud laugh, as if the foundations of Jehan’s thought process for the last month and a bit haven’t just been annihilated: “Date nights were often just us home alone with the kids while Charlie worked.”

Jehan can feel his eyes bugging out of their sockets in spite of himself. His brain is still struggling to compute.

Courf registers his shock and looks away quickly. “The break-up wasn’t too bad, and it was in high school, so.” He flutters his hands, Jehan’s not sure what the gesture is supposed to mean, but he thinks he should lay off guessing about _anything_ from now until eternity because never has he been so blind and so-close-to-right-but-so- _wrong_ about something.

“We’ve made our way back to being friends, though it wasn’t the easiest. Feuilly says the kids miss having me around, they don’t have a lot of stability in their lives, right? So I try to babysit when I can.”

Jehan feels like his brain is working through layers and layers of mud. Defrosting mud.

He mumbles, “That night you called Feuilly about your Tinder date…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I was backing out of time with the kids for a Tinder date.” Jehan thinks this is the first time he’s seen Courfeyrac properly blush. It’s as radiant as everything else about him, no shock there.

“You must think I’m a terrible human being.”

Jehan locks onto Courfeyrac’s Samodiva-like gaze. Jehan wonders if he’s also blushing now, the room feels very hot. Something about this moment suddenly feels very important, like it has more weight than all the other moments that came before it in this conversation.

“Not terrible,” Jehan says, “just a human being.”

Courf beams. Then he launches himself to standing as if nothing they’ve been talking about is of any consequence. “Let’s go into the living room!”

Jehan follows him, still reeling from the literal e v e r y t h i n g he just went through in that conversation.

“I thought we were going to look at some of your songs,” Jehan says as he carefully steps over the beanbag chairs to follow Courf.

“We can do that here!”

There is a guitar propped up in the far right corner, Jehan will give him that, but otherwise the comfort-filled room doesn’t look like it’s going to offer much in the way of productivity.

“Sit, sit! Sit anywhere!” Courfeyrac gestures. Jehan hesitates for half a second before plopping into a pink beanbag chair with orange and blue daises – it’s quite the eyesore. Jehan’s gaze is inevitably pulled to it whenever he’s in this room (well, like the one time previous.)

Courf seats himself in a paisley-patterned beanbag chair close to Jehan with his guitar in hand. It’s not the one he plays at showcase, so he must have multiple.

“Good choice,” he nods to Jehan’s chosen seat. “You can tell a lot about someone by the beanbag chair they choose.”

“Oh really? What does this say about me, then?” Jehan is joking, but Courf scrunches up his face like he’s taking the answer seriously.

“That you…like bright colours,” Jehan nods, that’s kinda a given, “and that you go with your first impulses a lot and sometimes you regret it.” Ok, damn, getting deeper here, Jehan thinks. Courfeyrac is getting into his analysis idea now and picks up speed: “You’re kind and sweet and you try to be honest and you often pick the odd one out of something because you feel like one yourself!” He shoots Jehan a shrewd look. “How’d I do?”

Jehan feels like whatever he says next will reveal too much. So he goes with his old stand-by: deflection!

“This doesn’t look like working on your songs…”

Courf groans. “Ugh, fine!” He digs in his pocket and throws a folded piece of paper at Jehan. He plucks out some random notes on the guitar as Jehan reads.

“This is just a bunch of your song titles, right?”

“Yeah, I need you to help me pick which three to do at the November showcase.”

Courfeyrac is still fiddling (guitar-ing?) with his guitar. Jehan gawks.

“Courf,” is that the first time he’s addressed him by his nickname? “today is Wednesday.” Courfeyrac nods. “The showcase is tomorrow.” He nods again.

“I know all those songs by route, just pick the three I haven’t played at showcase in a while, you’ll know best.”

Jehan blushes, thinking this is Courf teasing him about his pristine showcase attendance, but Courf is still just strumming absently.

“Ok…” he peruses the list. He can’t believe Courfeyrac doesn’t have his set chosen yet…Jehan would be a puddle of nerves, but clearly this is just routine for his friend. Some of his favourite songs Courfeyrac has written are on the list, but Jehan restrains himself and only suggests one of his favs, plus two others that were some of the first songs he ever heard Courf perform.

“You know what I’d really like to hear you do?” Jehan says, after Courfeyrac praises him for his set list construction, “The new one you did in October, the unfinished one. Something about fire?”

“I’ve Seen Enough Fire?” Courf pretends to puke over the side of his beanbag chair.

“Nooooooo!” Jehan pokes Courf’s knees with his toes three times before he second guesses himself. “I loved that piece!”

Courfeyrac won’t meet his eyes. “It’s not finished.”

“So? You played it before!”

“I don’t like it, Jehan, it’s a dead end.”

“It’s not…”

“It is!” Courfeyrac sets the guitar down more forcefully than Jehan was expecting; he thinks this is the most aggravated he’s seen Courf outside of social justice meetings. “I tried writing it a million different ways and nothing worked, sometimes that happens. It was too frustrating.”

Jehan is not convinced, but he decides to let it drop.

“Fair enough.” They’re silent for a few beats. “Can you play me the one we worked on a little, then?” Jehan tries. “I’m very curious!”

Courf’s face splits into a smile again and, just like that, everything is fine once more.

That’s how Jehan gets private concert of a song he helped Courfeyrac write (barely, but still!) Jehan doesn’t think he’s even going to try writing a poem about this moment; no words would do it justice. So he just sits as much in the moment as he can, watching Courf’s fingers create chords and trying to commit every word to memory.

“I love it!” he says, immediately after Courf is done strumming the last chord (it might come off as too enthusiastic, whatever.) Courf bites his lip, unsure.

“Thanks, I like it too. Once you helped me get unstuck, the rest of it just kind of…flowed out.” Jehan nods. He loves when that happens when writing. It makes all the (many) frustrating times worth it.

“Can _I_ ask _you_ a question now?”

Courfeyrac looks at him expectantly over the bridge of his guitar. “Yeah, shoot.”

“How come you don’t write any love songs?”

“How do you know I don’t write love songs?” is the sly reply. “Maybe you’ve just never heard any!” Jehan wants to roll off the beanbag chair backwards and faceplant into the floor in the face of his idiocy; he only just restrains himself.

“I…that never even occurred to me,” he chuckles. Courf chuckles too, gracious host he is.

“The club showcase really isn’t the place for them, ya know? That’s for all my ‘stick it to the man’ stuff.” Jehan bobs his head once, twice, to show he’s not such an idiot that he can’t grasp _that_. “And a lot of my love stuff is pretty old, I haven’t felt like writing in that vein for a while now. I kinda…have to be in that mood or in a relationship for those songs to work for me? And I do NOT want to be in a relationship right now, I’m nowhere near in the right headspace for that.”

The temperature in the room plummets like a stone. It feels as if the sun is setting all the faster after those words. _Nowhere near in the right…I do NOT want_ …Jehan makes a valiant effort to recover his heart and his jaw from the floor, to save face after such a statement.

“F-fair enough, man.”

Mercifully, it is getting late. As Jehan has to walk home, he leaves shortly after, and doesn’t think it feels too sudden to his friend. Courf asks him to text him when he gets there, but even this casual way of saying ‘I care about your safety’ doesn’t cheer Jehan up. He walks home in a fog.

Of all the bombshells to end on, he thinks later that night when he can’t sleep, why did it have to be that one? And it wasn’t even a bombshell, was it? That’s the worst part, it was the casual destruction of the flights of fancy Jehan’d been constructing since learning Feuilly and Courf weren’t into each other (anymore.) He hadn’t had time for a lot of elaborate constructing, true, but Courf’s confirmation that Feuilly wasn’t in love with him was the most sturdy ground Jehan’s dreams had ever had to stand on. So the destruction of those dreams, flimsy and built on supposedly sturdy ground as they were, was _not_ a bombshell, not compared to everything else that had been said. But it’s the thing keeping Jehan up tonight.

He turns over on his side. He could watch something or write something…would Grantaire still be awake after midnight? He could call him…but no. There’s no escaping these thoughts, this sadness.

It shouldn’t be a big deal! Nothing really has changed – it shouldn’t be this earthquake-level devastating. But all of the goodness and warmth of the earlier parts of the evening have been scooped out of Jehan’s chest and been hidden somewhere else, somewhere he can’t reach them. Jehan feels he has no right to let the few tears escape his scrunched eyes, but escape they do. He has no right to this loss (there is no loss! What has he lost? Nothing but dreams, it’s _fine_.) And maybe it would be fine, maybe none of this would hurt as much as it does, were it not for one terrible fact: the closer a friend Jehan becomes with Courfeyrac, the closer he is to falling in love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooooooooo how I just love this chapter!
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed!
> 
> The bulk of chapter eleven is mostly formed, and the rest is vaguely formed in my mind, so have little-to-no fear! It will be up soon...ish.


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